Skills Approach Application
According to the three-skill approach of Katz, the individual's leadership abilities vary depending on where leaders are in a management hierarchy. The practical implication of skills approach to leadership is that leaders can improve their capabilities in leadership skills through training and experience.
Advantages of Skills Approach:
The skills approach to leadership describes leadership from a skills standpoint and provides a structure for understanding the nature of effective leadership. According to three-skill approach of Katz the importance of certain leadership skills varies depending on where leaders are in a management hierarchy. In Mumford’s skill model theory he proposes that leadership effectiveness is directly correlated to a leader’s competencies in problem-solving skills, social judgment skills, and knowledge. The biggest takeaway from these studies was the outcome that these skills can be learned and developed. The practical implication of skills approach to leadership is that leaders can improve their capabilities in leadership skills through training and experience. Hence they assist in defining a structured approach to leadership education and development and help to frame the curricula of organizational training and leadership development programs.
How to use this approach:
The learner can use the characteristics of the skills defined in this approach to do a comparative self –evaluation of oneself to identify one’s strengths and weaknesses with regard to these three skills; technical, human, and conceptual. This assessment provides insight into one’s own leadership competencies and based on the development areas identified, learners can take specific trainings to enhance their leadership effectiveness.
There are many questionnaires available based on these studies to assess individual's skills. They provide a useful self-help, but a word of caution here is that they cannot be used in research because they have not been tested for reliability and validity. A typical questionnaire is the "Skills Inventory" and you can also take the quiz designed by TechnoFunc called TechnoFunc’s Skill Inventory to assess your skills and development areas.
Self-Leadership Development Plan:
Given below are the steps to define a leadership development plan for yourself using the key concepts from this approach:
1. Do a self-assessment – Use TechoFunc’s Quiz
2. Identify your strengths and weaknesses
3. Identify your training needs.
4. Explore the relevant area on TechnoFunc’s website to learn more about the skillset you need to develop and explore the tools provided here to increase your effectiveness.
Related Links
You May Also Like
-
McClelland's Theory of Needs is a human motivation theory which states that an individual's specific needs are acquired over time through our culture and life experiences. As per the three needs theory, these acquired needs significantly influence the behavior of an individual. The three main driving motivators are the needs for achievement, affiliation, and power.
-
Certain generally accepted truths or principles of communication are important to consider when communicating with others. These principles hold true for all people in every culture. By understanding these principles, you will experience greater communication effectiveness. An effective communication system is one that achieved its objectives. Communication is effective where there are no barriers to communication.
-
Trait theories of leadership identify the specific personality traits that distinguish leaders from non-leaders. The trait model of leadership is based on the traits or characteristics of leaders that make them successful in their leading role. These theories use heritable attributes to predict leadership effectiveness.
-
The psychodynamic approach to leadership has its roots in the work done by Sigmund Freud. These involved psychological theories of personality development and explaining leadership using psychoanalytic concepts. It tries to define a person is in terms of personality traits. Personality structured into three parts (i.e., tripartite) - the id, ego, and superego.
-
The style approach emphasizes that one style of leadership behaviour cannot be effective in all situations. Earlier theories treated leadership exclusively as a personality trait and behavior approach has widened the scope by including the behaviors of leaders and what they do in various situations. Explore how you can benefit from the concepts to understand your own behaviors and what are some of the leadership tools based on the style approach to leadership.
-
Social learning theory is a theory of learning process that states that most human behavior is learned observationally through modeling. Behavior change can occur in response to leader modeling and learning occurs through the observation of rewards and punishments. The focus of this approach has been teaching leadership across formal and informal settings.
-
Contingency Theories of Leadership
Contingency theories of leadership focus on both the leader's persona as well as the situation/environment in which that leader operates. These theories consider the context of leadership which means whether or not the leadership style suits a particular situation and states that a leader can be effective in one circumstance and a failure in another one. A leader will be most effective when he applies the right leadership style to a given situation and environment around him. Contingent leaders are flexible and adaptable.
-
Attribution Theory of Leadership
The attribution theory of leadership deals with the formation of individual opinions about the reasons for particular events or observations. People will always try to understand why people do what they do. The leader will make a judgment about his employees based on his attribution of the causes of the employees' performance. Individuals will also make inferences about the leader and react to poor performance by the leader.
-
Symbolic Interaction and Social Change
George Herbert Mead, an American philosopher, affiliated with the University of Chicago founded the theory of symbolic interactionism. A major aspect of this is that people interact by symbols both verbal and non-verbal signals and every interaction makes a contribution to the mental make-up of the mind thus every interaction with someone, changes you and you go away a different person signifying that humans and change go together.
-
McGregor's Theory X and Theory Y
McGregor created Theory X and Theory Y of human work motivation and explained two styles of management known as authoritarian (Theory X) and participative (Theory Y). Theory X management assumes most people will attempt to avoid work whereas Theory Y managers trust their people to take ownership of their work.
