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Chapter 3
Trail Approach
Personality characteristics (stable) —
not useful for training and development
for leadership
Certain people were born with special
traits that made them great leaders.
Trail are who leaders are (i.e., their
innate characteristics)
Skill Approach
Skills are what leaders can accomplish.
A leader-centered perspective on
leadership.
An emphasis on skills and abilities that can
be learned and developed.
The skill approach suggests that
knowledge and abilities are needed for
effective leadership.
Skill Approach
1955—Robert Katz (Harvard Business
Review : Skills of an Effective
Administrator)
Katz’s article appeared at a time when
researchers were trying to identify a
definitive set of leadership traits.
Katz’s approach was an attempt to
transcend the trait problem by addressing
leadership as a set of developable skills.
Three-Skill Approach
Technical
Skills—deal with things.
Human Skills—deal with people.
Conceptual skills—the ability to work with
ideas.
Skill Approach
Problem-Solving Skills
Social Judgment Skills
Knowledge
Problem-Solving Skills
Problem-solving skills are a leader’s
creative ability to solve new and unusual,
ill-defined organizational problems.
The skills included being able to define
significant problems, gather problem
information, formulate new understandings
about the problem, and generate prototype
plans for problem solutions.
Social Judgment Skills
Perspective taking
Social perceptiveness
Behavioral flexibility
Social performance
Perspective Taking
Perspective taking means understanding
the attitudes that others have toward a
particular problem or solution.
Perspective taking means being sensitive
to other people’s perspectives and goals—
being able to understand their point of
view on different issues.
Social intelligence
Social Perceptiveness
This
attribute reminds us that our
personality has an impact on the
development of our leadership skills.
Leadership Outcomes
Effective
Problem Solving
Performance
Effective Problem Solving
Problem solving is the keystone in the
skills approach.
In the model, problem-solving skills, as
competencies, lead to effective problem
solving as a leadership outcome.
Good problem solving involves creating
solutions that are logical, effective, and
unique and that go beyond given
information.
Performance
Katz:
Lower levels of management—technical and
human skills are most important.
Middle levels of management—technical,
human, and conceptual skills.
The upper management levels—conceptual
and human skills.
How does the skills approach work?
Strengths—
1. a leader-centered model (the important
of the leader’s abilities).
2. it available to everyone (we all can
learn to develop and improve).
Summary
Strengths—
3. it provides a map (explain how
effective leadership performance can be
achieved).
4. it provides a structure for leadership
education and development programs.
Summary
Criticisms—
1. the breadth of the model seems to
extend beyond the boundaries of
leadership.
2. the skill model is weak in predictive
value (it does not explain how a person’s
competencies lead to effective leadership
performance).
Summary
Criticisms—
3. the skills model claim not to be a trait
approach, but individual traits such as
cognitive abilities, motivation, and
personality play a large role in the model.
4. the skills model is weak in general
application because it was constructed
using only data from military personnel.