Week # 03

Leadership Skills Approach

Lecture By;

MUHAMMAD FURQAN SIDDIQUI

BSCS, MBA (2006, im|sciences), MS/M.Phil (2012, IBMS)

Senior Lecturer (Finance & Management)

CECOS University of IT & Emerging Sciences Peshawar

Lecture Outline

(Week - 03)

An Overview of Skill Approach

Three-Skill Approach
Skills Model
How Does The Skills Approach Work?

Muhammad Furqan (Lecturer-Management Sciences)

Leaders of Corporate Sector

Who Created Impression In This World.

Muhammad Furqan (Lecturer-Finance)

1. An Overview of Skill Approach

Perspective

Leader-centered

perspective
Emphasis on skills
and abilities that
can be learned
and developed

Muhammad Furqan (Lecturer-Management Sciences)

Definition

Leadership skills The ability to use

ones knowledge and
competencies
to
accomplish a set of
goals and objectives

1. An Overview of Skill Approach

The skills approach takes a leader-centered perspective on

leadership.

However, in the skills approach we shift our thinking from a

focus on personality characteristics, which usually are

viewed as natural and largely fixed, to an emphasis on skills

and abilities that can be learned and developed.

Although personality certainly plays an integral role in

leadership, the skills approach suggests that knowledge and
abilities are needed for effective leadership.

Muhammad Furqan (Lecturer-Management Sciences)

1. An Overview of Skill Approach (Cont)

The research on skills was a classic article published by
Robert Katz in the Harvard Business Review in 1955,
titled Skills of an Effective Administrator.
Katzs article appeared at a time when researchers were trying
to identify a definitive set of leadership traits.
Katzs approach was an attempt to exceed the trait problem by
addressing leadership as a set of developable skills.

Muhammad Furqan (Lecturer-Management Sciences)

2. Three-Skill Approach
Based on field research in administration and his own firsthand
observations of executives in the workplace, Katz (1955)
suggested that effective administration (i.e., leadership)
depends on three basic personal skills: :

1. Technical Skills
2. Human Skills, and
3. Conceptual Skills.

Muhammad Furqan (Lecturer-Management Sciences)

Basic Administrative Skills Katz (1955)

Management Skills Necessary at Various Levels of an Organization

Leaders need
all three skills
but,
skill ability/
importance
changes
based on
level of
management
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Muhammad Furqan (Lecturer-Management Sciences)

2. Three-Skill Approach
1. Technical Skills

Technical skill is knowledge about and PROFICIENCY

in a specific type of work or activity.
It

includes

analytical

competencies

in

specialized

area,

ability, and the ability to use appropriate

tools and techniques.

For example, in an accounting firm, technical skill might
include understanding and having the ability to apply
generally accepted accounting principles to a clients audit.
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Muhammad Furqan (Lecturer-Management Sciences)

2. Three-Skill Approach
2. Human Skills

Human skill is knowledge about and ability to work with

people.
It is quite different from technical skill, which has to do
with working with things (Katz, 1955).
Human skills are People Skills.

They are the abilities that help a leader to work effectively

with Subordinates, Peers, and Superiors
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Muhammad Furqan (Lecturer-Management Sciences)

2. Three-Skill Approach
3. Conceptual Skill

The ability to do the mental work of shaping meaning of

organizational policy or issues
(what company stands for and where its going).

A leader with conceptual skills is comfortable talking about

the ideas that shape an organization and the details
involved.
Conceptual skills are central to creating a vision and
strategic plan for an organization.
CEO in a manufacturing company to articulate a vision for a
line of new products that would steer the company into
profitability.
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Muhammad Furqan (Lecturer-Management Sciences)

3. Skills-Based Model
Beginning in the early 1990s, a group of researchers, with
funding from the U.S. Army and Department of Defense,
set out to test and develop a comprehensive theory of
leadership based on problem-solving skills in
organizations.

The studies were conducted over a number of years using

a sample of more than 1,800 Army officers, representing
six grade levels, from second lieutenant to colonel.
The project used a variety of new measures and tools to
assess the skills of these officers, their experiences,
and the situations in which they worked.
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Muhammad Furqan (Lecturer-Management Sciences)

3. Skills-Based Model
The researchers main goal was to explain the underlying
Elements of Effective Performance.
They addressed questions such as these:
i.

What accounts for why some leaders are good

problem solvers and others are not?
ii. What specific skills do high-performing leaders
exhibit?
iii. How do leaders individual characteristics, career
experiences, and environmental influences affect
their job performance?
As a whole, researchers wanted to identify the leadership factors that
create excellent job performance in an actual organization.
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Muhammad Furqan (Lecturer-Management Sciences)

Skills-Based Model
The skill-based model of Mumfords group

has five components:

1. Competencies
2. Individual Attributes
3. Leadership Outcomes
4. Career Experiences
5. Environmental Influences
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Muhammad Furqan (Lecturer-Management Sciences)

Skills-Based Model
Three of these components of the model is essential to
understanding the overall skill-based leadership model.

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Muhammad Furqan (Lecturer-Management Sciences)

Skills-Based Model
1. Competency Skills

Competencies

Problem Solving
Creative ability to
solve new/unusual,
ill-defined
organizational
problems

Social Judgment
Capacity to
understand people
and social systems
- Perspective taking
- Social perceptiveness
- Behavioral flexibility
- Social performance

Knowledge
The accumulation
of information & the
mental structures to
organize the
information

Skills-Based Model
2. Individual Attributes

Individual
Attributes
General Cognitive
Ability

Crystallized
Cognitive Ability

Motivation

Three aspects of
Intellectual
motivation
ability learned
- Willingness
- Information processing or acquired
over time
- Dominance
- General reasoning
- Social good
- Creative & divergent

Persons intelligence
- Perceptual processing

thinking
- Memory

Personality
Any
characteristic
that helps people
cope with
complex
organizational
situations is
probably related
to leader
performance

Skills-Based Model
3. Leadership Outcomes
Leadership
Outcomes

Problem Solving

Criteria = originality & quality of

solutions to problem situations good
problem solving involves creating
solutions that are:
- Logical
- Effective
- Unique
- Go beyond given information

Performance
Degree to which a
leader has successfully
performed his/her
assigned duties

Skills-Based Model
Skills Model of Leadership

Skills-Based Model
4. Career Experiences

Career
Experiences
Challenging
Assignments

Mentoring

Appropriate
Training

Hands-on
Experience With
Novelty

Experience gained during career influences leaders knowledge &

skills to solve complex problems
Leaders learn and develop higher levels of conceptual capacity if
they progressively confront more complex and long-term problems
as they ascend the organizational hierarchy

Skills-Based Model
5. Environmental Influences

Environmental
Influences
Factors
Outside of Leaders
Control
Factors in a leaders situation that lie outside of the leaders
competencies, characteristics, and experiences

Outdated technology
Subordinates

How Does the Skills Approach Work?

The skills approach works by providing a map

for:
How to reach effective leadership in an organization

Leaders need to have problem-solving skills,

social judgment skills, and knowledge.

It is the leaders skills themselves that are most

important in addressing organizational problems.

A.
B.
C.
D.
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Focus of Skills Approach

Strengths
Criticisms
Application

Muhammad Furqan (Lecturer-Management Sciences)

How Does the Skills Approach Work?

A. Skills Approach
Focus

Focus is primarily

descriptive it
describes leadership
from skills
perspective
Provides structure for
understanding the
nature of effective
leadership

Principal Research
Perspectives

Katz (1955) suggests

importance of particular
leadership skills varies
depending where leaders
reside in management
hierarchy
Mumford et al. (2000)
suggest leadership
outcomes are direct result
of leaders skilled
competency in problem
solving, social judgment &
knowledge

How Does the Skills Approach Work?

B. Strengths
First approach to conceptualize and create a

structure of the process of leadership around

skills
Describing leadership in terms of skills makes
leadership available to everyone
Provides an expansive view of leadership that
incorporates wide variety of components (i.e.,
problem-solving skills, social judgment skills)
Provides a structure consistent with leadership
education programs

How Does the Skills Approach Work?

C. Criticisms
Breadth of the skills approach appears to extend

beyond the boundaries of leadership, making it

more general/less precise
Weak in predictive value; does not explain how
skills lead to effective leadership performance
Skills model includes individual attributes that are
trait-like

How Does the Skills Approach Work?

D. Application
The Skills Approach provides a way to delineate the

skills of a leader
It is applicable to leaders at all levels within the
organization
The skills inventory can provide insights into the
individuals leadership competencies
Test scores allow leaders to learn about areas in which
they may wish to seek further training