Managerial Leadership | Chapter 3 - Skills Approach

all 3 levels of management.

human skills are important in ________________.

2. Crystallized cognitive ability (individual attribute)

intellectual ability that is learned or acquired over time. It is the store of knowledge we acquire through experience.

Perspective Taking (social judgment skill)

means understanding the attitudes that others have towards a particular problem or solution. It is empathy applied to problem-solving; means being sensitive to other people's perspectives & goals.

Top; Less

conceptual skill is most important at the ________ management levels. As you move down to lower management, conceptual skills become _______ important.

Skills approach

emphasis on skills & abilities that can be learned and developed; suggests that knowledge & skills are needed for effective leadership.

External environmental influences

factors like economic, political, and social influences, as well as natural disasters.

Internal environmental influences

factors like technology, facilities, expertise of subordinates, and communication.

Social Performance (social judgment skill)

includes a wide range of leadership competencies; based on an understand of follower's perspectives, leaders need to be able to communicate their own vision to others. Skill in persuasion & communicating is essential to this.

Social Perceptiveness (social judgment skill)

insight & awareness into how others in the org function; means understanding the unique needs, goals, and demands of different organizational constituencies. (Have a sense of how followers will respond.)

Mumford: Skill-based Model of Leadership

model is characterized as a CAPABILITY model because it examines the relationship between a leader's knowledge & skills & the leader's performance. Leadership capabilities can be developed over time through education & experience; suggests that many people have the potential for leadership.

Social Intelligence

perspective-taking skills can be linked to these skills which are concerned with knowledge about people, the social fabric of organizations, & the interrelatedness of each of them.

Performance (leadership outcome)

reflect how well the leader has done his or her job; the degree to which a leader has successfully performed the assigned duties.

Environmental influences

represent factors that lie outside the leader's competencies, characteristics, and experiences. Can be internal or external. ** the skills model does NOT provide an inventory of specific environemtnal influencs, instead, it acknowledges their existence - they are part of the skills model but not usually under the control of the leader.

lower and middle levels; upper

technical skill is most important at __________ and __________ levels of management and less important in ___________ management.

Leadership Skills

the ability to use one's knowledge & competencies to accomplish a set of goals or objectives; shows that these can be acquired & leaders can be trained to develop them.

3. Knowledge (Competency)

the accumulation of info & the mental structures used to organize that information. Such a mental structure is called a SCHEMA - a summary, a diagrammatic representation, or an outline. Allows people to use the past to constuctively confront the future.

Behavioral Flexibility (social judgment skill)

the capacity to change & adapt one's behavior in light of an understanding of others' perspectives in the org; being flexible means one is NOT locked into a singular approach to a problem.

1. Problem-solving skills (Competency)

are a leader's creative ability to solve new & unusual, ill-defined organizational problems. Skills include being able to define significant problems, gather problem info, formulate new understandings, & generate prototype plans for problem solutions.

2. Social judgment skills (Competency)

are the capability to understand people & social systems; they enable leaders to work with others to solve problems. They are the people skills that are necessary to solve unique organizational problems.

Skills

are what leaders can accomplish

Traits

are who leaders are (their innate characteristics)

1. General cognitive ability (individual attribute)

can be thought of as a person's intelligence; it includes perceptual processing, information processing, general reasoning skills, creative & divergent thinking capacities, and memory skills. ~ linked to biology NOT experience

Effective problem solving (leadership outcome)

the keystone in the skills approach - good problem solving involves creating solutions that are logical, effective, and unique, that go beyond given information.

4. Personality (individual attribute)

the skills model hypothesizes that any personality characteristics that help people to cope with complex organizational situations probably is related to leader performance.

2 Leadership Outcomes (3rd component of Mumford's model)

these outcomes are strongly influenced by the leader's competencies - when leaders exhibit these competencies, they increase their chances of problem solving and overall performance. 1. Effective problem solving 2. Performance

4 Social Judgment Skills

(in contrast to Katz's work, Mumford has delineated social judgment skills into the following) 1. Perspective taking 2. Social perceptiveness 3. Behavioral flexibility 4. Social performance

Human Skill

- Being aware of one's own perspective and others' perspectives at the same time - Assisting group members in working cooperatively to achieve common goals - Creating an atmosphere of trust and empowerment of members - Important at all levels of the organization

Technical Skills

- Technical skills involve hands-on ability with a product or process - Most important at lower levels of management

Conceptual Skills

- Works easily with abstraction and hypothetical notions - Central to creating and articulating a vision and strategic plan for an organization - Most important at top management levels

4 Individual Attributes (1st component of Mumford's model)

1. General cognitive ability 2. Crystallized cognitive ability 3. Motivation 4. Personality

3 Components of Mumford's Skill-based Model

1. Individual Attributes 2. Compentencies 3. Leadership outcomes (Career Experiences) (Environmental Influences)

Strengths of Skills Approach

1. It is a leader-centered model that stresses the importance of developing particular leadership skills. 2. Intuitively appealing - makes leadership available to everyone. 3. Provides an expansive view of leadership that incorporates a wide variety of components. 4. Provides a structure that is very consistent with the curricula for most leadership education programs.

3 Competencies

1. Problem-solving skills 2. Social judgement skills 3. Knowledge

Three-Skill Approach (Katz, 1955)

1. Technical - Things 2. Human - People 3. Conceptual - ideas

Criticisms of Skills Approach

1. The breadth of the approach seems to extend beyond the boundaries of leadership. 2. Is weak in predictive value. 3. For claiming NOT to be a trait model when, in fact, a major component in the model includes individual attributes, which are trait-like. 4. May not be suitable or appropriately applied to other contexts of leadership.

3. Motivation (individual attribute)

1st: leaders must be willing to tackle complex org problems. 2nd: leaders must be willing to express dominance (exert their influence). 3rd: leaders must be committed to the social good of the organization.