(Assignment on Educational Administration )

Leadership Skills Approach

Submitted by:

Nasir Khan (11884)

M.Phil Education

Submitted to

Prof. Dr. Munawar Mumtaz

Qurtuba University of Science & Information Technology

I am amazed to see people running companies who do not have the creativity to respond in a

dynamic environment. In an unforgiving, fast-paced business climate, you are infinitely better

prepared if you are a creative person. Good communicators have an enormous advantage over

poor communicators because so much of running a company is inspirational, external and

internal, that is, inspiring your employees, shareholders, industry analysts, and customers.

(Craig Conway)

in a manner similar to the trait approach, the skills approach to leadership is a leader centered

perspective. But the two approaches are different in that in the trait approach, we focused on

personality traits that are considered inherent and relatively stable from birth, whereas in this

chapter, we focus on a person’s “skills and abilities that can be learned and developed”

(Northouse, 2010). Skills suggest what leaders can achieve, whereas traits suggest who they are

based on their intrinsic characteristics. The skills approach implies that skills, knowledge, and

abilities are required for a leader to be effective. In this chapter, we focus on two studies that

defined the skills approach: Katz (1974) and Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, Jacobs, and Fleishman

(2000).

Katz’s Three-Skills Approach

Katz’s (1974) seminal article on the skills approach to leadership suggested that leadership (i.e.,

effective administration) is based on three skills: technical, human, and conceptual.

Technical Skills

Technical skill is proficiency, based on specific knowledge, in a particular area of work. To have

technical skills means that a person is competent and knowledgeable with respect to the activities

specific to an organization, the organization’s rules and standard operating procedures, and the
organization’s products and services (Katz, 1974; Yukl, 2006). Technical skill is most important

at supervisory levels of management, less important for middle managers, and least important for

top managers such as CEOs and senior managers. Finally, technical skill is proficiency in

working with things.

Human Skills

In contrast to technical skills, human (or interpersonal) skills are proficiency in working with

people based on a person’s knowledge about people and how they behave, how they operate in

groups, how to communicate effectively with them, and their motives, attitudes, and feelings.

They are the skills required to effectively influence superiors, peers, and subordinates in the

achievement of organizational goals. These skills enable a leader to influence team or group

members to work together to accomplish organizational goals and objectives. Human skill

proficiency means that leaders know their thoughts on different issues and, simultaneously,

become cognizant of the thoughts of others. Consequently, leaders with higher levels of

interpersonal skills are better able to adapt their own ideas to other people’s ideas, especially

when this will aid in achieving organizational goals more quickly and efficiently. These leaders

are more sensitive and empathetic to what motivates others, create an atmosphere of trust for

their followers, and take others’ needs and motivations into account when deciding what to do to

achieve organizational goals. Interpersonal skills are required at all three levels of management:

supervisory, middle management, and senior management (Katz, 1974; Yukl, 2006).

Conceptual Skills

Conceptual skills allow you to think through and work with ideas. Leaders with higher levels of

conceptual skills are good at thinking through the ideas that form an organization and its vision

for the future, expressing these ideas in verbal and written forms, and understanding and
expressing the economic principles underlying their organization’s effectiveness. These leaders

are comfortable asking “what if” or hypothetical questions and working with abstract ideas.

Conceptual skills allow leaders to give abstract ideas meaning and to make sense of abstract

ideas for their superiors, peers, and subordinates. This skill is most important for top managers,

less important for middle managers, and least important for supervisory managers (Northouse,

2010).We would offer one caveat.While conceptual skills are less important at lower levels of

management, to be promoted to higher levels of management, it is important to develop and

demonstrate this skill at all levels of management (Yukl, 2006). It is a skill that can be learned;

consequently, I encourage you to take advantage of every opportunity to develop and the ability

to learn conceptually. Recent research used a four-skill model similar to Katz’, which includes

interpersonal, cognitive, business, and strategic skills. Results show that although interpersonal

and cognitive skills were required more than business and strategic skills for those on the lower

levels of management, as leaders climbed the career ladder, higher levels of all four of these

leadership skills became necessary (Mumford, Campion & Morgeson, 2007).

Leadership Skills Model

This approach suggests that leadership is not just the purview of a few people born with traits

that make them effective leaders. The skills approach implies that many people have leadership

potential, and if they can learn from their experiences, they can become more effective leaders.

This means involvement with activities and/or exposure to people and events leading to an

increase in skills, knowledge, and abilities. This model is different from a “what leaders do”

approach and focuses on capabilities that make leaders effective (Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, et

al., 2000; Northouse, 2010). The leadership skills approach by Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, et al.
(2000) has five elements: individual attributes, competencies, leadership outcomes, career

experiences, and environmental influences.

Competencies are the most important element—the “kingpin”—in this model.

Competencies lead to leadership outcomes but themselves are affected by a leader’s individual

attributes. In addition, the impact of leaders’ attributes on leaders’ competencies and leaders’

competencies on outcomes is dependent on career experiences and environmental influences. In

the next few paragraphs, we describe competencies, how attributes affect competencies, and how

competencies affect leadership outcomes, and we briefly discuss the impact of career

experiences on attributes and competencies and the impact of environmental influences on

attributes, competencies, and outcomes.

Leader Competencies

Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, et al. (2000) identified three competencies that result in effective

leadership: problem solving, social judgment, and knowledge. These three work together and

separately to affect outcomes.

Problem-Solving Skills.

These are creative abilities that leaders bring to unique, vague, “hard to get a handle on”

organizational problems. These skills include the following: defining problems and issues that

are important, accumulating information related to the problem/issue, developing new ways to

comprehend each problem/issue, and developing unique, first-of-its-kind alternatives for solving

the problems/issues. Problem-solving skills operate in the context of an organization and its

environment and require that leaders be aware of their own capacities and challenges relative to

the problem/issue and the organizational context (Mumford, Zaccaro, Connelly, & Marks, 2000).

The solutions or alternatives developed to solve problems and issues require that leaders be
conscious of the time required to develop and execute solutions—whether the solutions are

achieving short-term and/or long-term objectives, whether these objectives are organizational or

personal, and the external context such as the industry, national, and international environments

(Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, et al., 2000).

Social Judgment Skills.

These are skills that enable leaders to comprehend people and the social systems within which

they work, play, and have a social life (e.g., friends and family) (Zaccaro, Mumford, Connelly,

Marks, & Gilbert, 2000). Social judgment skills facilitate working with others to lead change,

solve problems, and make sense of issues. Mumford and colleagues (Mumford, Zaccaro,Harding,

et al., 2000) outlined four elements important to social judgment skills: perspective taking, social

perceptiveness, behavioral flexibility, and social performance. Perspective taking is sensitivity to

others’ objectives and perspective; it is an empathic perspective to solving problems, and it

means that leaders actively seek out knowledge regarding people, their organization’s social

fabric, and how these two very important areas of knowledge intersect with each other.

Whereas perspective taking is associated with others’ attitudes, social perceptiveness is about

leaders knowing what people will do when confronted with proposed changes. Behavioral

flexibility means being able to change what one does when confronted with others’ attitudes and

intended actions based on knowledge gained through perspective taking and social

perceptiveness, respectively. Leaders with behavioral flexibility understand that there are many

different paths to achieving change and the goals and objectives associated with change.

Social performance

means being skilled in several leadership competencies. Some of these are abilities in

persuading and communicating in order to convey one’s own vision to others in the organization,
abilities in mediation that enable the leader to mediate interpersonal conflict related to change

and to lessen resistance to change, and abilities in coaching and mentoring by giving

subordinates support and direction as they work to achieve organizational objectives and goals.

To summarize, Northouse (2010) stated that social judgment skills are about being sensitive to

how your ideas fit in with others.

Can you understand others and their unique needs andmotivations? Are you flexible and can you

adapt your own ideas to others? Last, can you work with others even when there are resistance

and change? Social judgment skills are the people skills required to advance change in an

organization.

Knowledge.

Knowledge is the gathering of information and the development of mental structures to organize

that information in a meaningful way. These mental structures are called schema, which means a

diagrammatic representation or depiction. Knowledgeable leaders have more highly developed

and complex schemata that they use to collect and organize data. Knowledge is linked to a

leader’s problem-solving skills. More knowledgeable leaders are able to consider complex

organizational issues and to develop alternative and appropriate strategies for change.

Knowledge allows leaders to use prior incidents to constructively plan for and change the future.

Individual Attributes

Mumford and his colleagues (e.g., Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, et al., 2000) identified four

attributes that affect the three leader competencies (problem-solving skills, social judgment

skills, and knowledge) and, through these competencies, leader performance.

General Cognitive Ability. Think “perceptual processing, information processing, general

reasoning skills, creative and divergent thinking capacities, and memory skills” Northouse,
2010). This is a brief description of general cognitive ability. This type of intelligence grows as

we age to early adulthood but declines as we grow older. General cognitive ability positively

affects a leader’s ability to acquire knowledge and complex problem-solving skills (Northouse,

2010).

Crystallized Cognitive Ability.

Think “intelligence that develops because of experience.”As we age and gain more experience,

we acquire intelligence—this is crystallized cognitive ability. This type of intelligence remains

relatively consistent and generally does not diminish as we age. As our crystallized cognitive

ability increases, it positively affects our leadership potential by increasing our social judgment

skills, conceptual ability, and problem-solving skills.

Motivation. Motivation affects leadership competencies in several ways.We discuss three ways

in which motivation helps in the development of leadership competencies. First, a person must

want to lead—there must be a willingness to engage in solving complex organizational issues

and problems. Second, leaders must be willing to exert influence— to be willing to be dominant

within a group of people. Finally, the leader must be willing to advance the “social good” of the

organization (Northouse, 2010; Yukl, 2006).

Personality. This is the fourth attribute positively linked to leadership competencies. Northouse

(2010) gives three examples of personality that affect how motivated leaders are able to resolve

organizational issues and problems. They are tolerance for ambiguity, openness, and curiosity.

Leaders with confidence and adaptability may be helpful in situations of conflict. The skills

model suggests that personality traits that aid in developing leader competencies lead to better

leader performance (Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, et al., 2000).

Individual attributes lead to leader competencies, which lead to leadership outcomes. It is

noteworthy that without the development of leader competencies, individual attributes may have

little effect on leadership outcomes. This reminds us that the leadership competencies element is

the “kingpin” component of the leadership skills model.We discuss two leadership outcomes:

effective problem solving and leader performance.

Effective Problem Solving.

Mumford and his colleagues (e.g.,Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, et al., 2000) developed the skills

model to explain variation in the ability of leaders to solve problems—this makes it a capability

model. An effective problem solver develops unique, original, and high-quality solutions to

issues and problems. Leaders with higher levels of competencies will be more effective problem

solvers.

Performance.

This outcome refers to the individual leader’s job performance—how well he or she has

performed. This is usually evaluated by objective external measures. Better performance leads to

better evaluations. Leaders whose performance is better will receive better annual evaluations,

larger merit pay increases, and recognition as better leaders.

Effective problem solving and leader performance are linked, even though they are separate

ways of measuring leadership outcomes.

Career Experiences

Career experiences affect both individual attributes and leadership competencies. We believe that

some career assignments may develop a leader’s motivation to be a better problem solver or be

better at interacting with people. These career assignments may also help increase a leader’s
crystallized cognitive ability. Of course, this depends on being in assignments that have been

progressively more difficult, with long-term problems and issues, and at increasingly higher

levels in the organization’s hierarchy. Arguing that leaders develop as a result of their career

experiences suggests that leaders can learn leadership abilities and are not necessarily born with

leadership abilities (Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, et al., 2000; Northouse, 2010).

Environmental Influences

These are factors that are external to individual attributes, leader competencies, and career

experiences and that affect leadership outcomes along with the effect of individual attributes

through leadership competencies. We will not discuss particular external influences. However,

we acknowledge that they exist and that they may affect a leader’s ability to be an effective

problem solver. They are factors that are considered beyond the control of the leader. Of course,

leaders who use the environment as an excuse for their poor performance may not be allowed to

continue in their leadership role/position if external factors are not the real cause of poor

performance. Top-tier leaders use the environment with great caution and only when they are

sure it is the real reason.

How Does the Leadership Skills Approach Work?

The leadership skills approach is mainly a descriptive model. This approach allows students of

leadership to comprehend what it takes to be an effective leader rather than offering prescriptive

ways to be an effective leader.

Katz’s (1974) three-skills approach implies that where one is in an organization determines how

important each skill is to a leader’s effectiveness. The leadership skills approach (Mumford,

Zaccaro, Harding, et al., 2000) is a much more complex model of leadership effectiveness that is

based on rigorous research conducted on U.S.Army officers who ranged in rank from second
lieutenant to colonel. This model suggests that leadership effectiveness as measured by outcomes

is a direct result of leader competencies and the indirect result of individual attributes working

through leader competencies. Finally, the model contends that career experiences work indirectly

to affect leadership outcomes, while environmental influences work indirectly and directly to

influence leadership outcomes.

Katz, R. L. (1974, September/October). Skills of an effective administrator, Harvard Business Review,

52(5), 90–102.

Mumford, M. D., Zaccaro, S. J., Connelly, M. S., & Marks, M. A. (2000). Leadership skills:

Conclusions and future directions. The Leadership Quarterly, 11(1), 155–170.

Mumford, M. D., Zaccaro, S. J., Harding, F. D., Jacobs, T., & Fleishman, E. A. (2000). Leadership skills

for a changing world: Solving complex problems. The Leadership Quarterly, 11(1), 11–35.

Mumford, T.V., Campion, M.A., & Morgeson, F.P. (2007). The leadership skills strataplex: Leadership

skill requirements across organizational levels. Leadership Quarterly, 18, (pp. 154–166).

Northouse, P. G. (2010). Leadership: Theory and practice (5th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Yukl, G. (2006). Leadership in organizations (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson-Prentice Hall.

Zaccaro, S. J., Mumford, M. D., Connelly, M. S., Marks, M. A., & Gilbert, J. A. (2000). Assessment of

leader problem-solving capabilities. The Leadership Quarterly, 11(1), 37–64.

Craig Conway is the former President and Chief Executive Officer of PeopleSoft.