Leadership and Change Chapter 3: Skill Approach - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Leadership and Change

Chapter 3: Skill Approach

Mansoor Ullah Baig/IMsciencesSlide2

Overview

Skills Approach Perspective

Three-Skill Approach (Katz, 1955)

Skills-Based Model (Mumford, et al, 2000)

How Does the Skills Approach Work?

Mansoor Ullah Baig/IMsciencesSlide3

Skills Approach Description

Leader-centered perspective

Emphasis on skills and abilities that can be learned and developed

Leadership skills - The ability to use one’s knowledge and competencies to accomplish a set of goals and objectives

Perspective

Definition

Mansoor Ullah Baig/IMsciences

Personality certainly plays an important role

.Slide4

Three-Skill Approach (Katz, 1955)

Mansoor Ullah Baig/IMsciences

Technical Skill

Human Skill

Conceptual SkillSlide5

Technical Skill

Technical skill

- having knowledge about and being proficient in a specific type of work or activity.

Specialized competencies

Analytical ability

Capability to use appropriate tools and techniques

Technical skills involve

hands-on

ability with a product or process

Most important at lower

levels of management

Mansoor Ullah Baig/IMsciencesSlide6

Human Skill

Human skill

–

having knowledge about and being able to work

with people.

Awareness of one’s own perspective and others’ perspectives at the same time

People skills

help a leader to assist group members in working cooperatively to achieve common goals

Creates an atmosphere of trust where members feel they can become involved and impact decisions in the organization

Important at

all

levels of the organization

Mansoor Ullah Baig/IMsciencesSlide7

Conceptual Skill

Conceptual skill

-

the ability to do the mental work of shaping meaning of organizational policy or issues

(what company stands for and where it’s going)

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

Mansoor Ullah Baig/IMsciencesSlide8

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

Slide9

Skills Model

(Mumford,

Zaccaro

, Harding, Jacobs, & Fleishman, 2000)

Research studies (1990s) goal: to identify the leadership factors that create exemplary job performance in an organization

Emphasizes the

capabilities

that make effective leadership possible rather than what leaders

do

Perspective

Skills-Based Model

of

Leadership

Capability model

- Examines relationship between a leader’s knowledge & skills & the leader’s

performance .

Suggests

many people have the potential for leadership

Mansoor Ullah Baig/IMsciences

Skills-Based

Model components

Competencies

Individual Attributes

Leadership Outcomes

Career Experiences

Environmental InfluencesSlide10

Skills Model

Three Components of the Skills Model

Mansoor Ullah Baig/IMsciencesSlide11

Competency Skills

Competencies

Problem Solving

Social Judgment

Knowledge

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

Capacity to understand people and social systems

-

Perspective taking

- Social perceptiveness

- Behavioral flexibility

- Social performance

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

Mansoor Ullah Baig/IMsciencesSlide12

Problem Solving Skills

Mansoor Ullah Baig/IMsciences

The skills include being able to define significant problems, gather problem information, formulate new understandings about the problem, and generate prototype plans for problem solutions. These skills do not function in a vacuum, but are carried out in an organizational context. Problem-solving skills demand that leaders understand their own leadership capacities as they apply possible solutions to the unique problems in their

organization.

(Mumford, Zaccaro, Connelly, & Marks, 2000).Slide13

Problem Solving Skills Example

Mansoor Ullah Baig/IMsciences

First, you identify the full ramifications for employees of changing their health insurance coverage. What is the impact going to be?

Second, you gather information about how benefits can be scaled back. What other companies have attempted a similar change, and what were their results?

Third, you find a way to teach and inform the employees about the needed change. How can you frame the change in such a way that it is clearly understood? Slide14

Cont’d…

Mansoor Ullah Baig/IMsciences

Fourth, you create possible scenarios for how the changes will be instituted. How will the plan be described?

Fifth, you look closely at the solution itself. How will implementing this change affect the company’s mission and your own career?

Last, are there issues in the organization (e.g., union rules) that may affect the implementation of these changes?Slide15

Competency Skills

Competencies

Problem Solving

Social Judgment

Knowledge

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

Capacity to understand people

and

social systems

- Perspective taking

-

Social perceptiveness

- Behavioral flexibility

- Social performance

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

Mansoor Ullah Baig/IMsciencesSlide16

Social Judgment Skills

Mansoor Ullah Baig/IMsciences

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 perceptiveness

is insight and awareness into how others in the organization function. What is important to others? What motivates them? What problems do they face, and how do they react to change? Social perceptiveness means understanding the unique needs, goals, and demands of different organizational constituencies (

Zaccaro

et al., 1991). Slide17

Cont’d…

Mansoor Ullah Baig/IMsciences

Behavioral flexibility

is the capacity to change and adapt one’s behavior in light of an understanding of others’ perspectives in the organization. Being flexible means one is not locked into a singular approach to a problem. As the circumstances of a situation change, a flexible leader changes to meet the new demands.

Social performance

includes a wide range of leadership competencies. Skill in persuasion and communicating change is essential to do this. When there is resistance to change or interpersonal conflict about change, leaders need to function as mediators. To this end, skill in conflict resolution is an important aspect. In addition, social performance some­times requires that leaders coach subordinates, giving them direction and support as they move toward selected organizational goals. Slide18

Individual Attributes

Individual

Attributes

General Cognitive

Ability

Person’s intelligence

-

Perceptual processing

- Information processing

- General reasoning

- Creative & divergent

thinking

- Memory

Intellectual ability learned or acquired over time

Crystallized

Cognitive Ability

Motivation

Personality

Three aspects of

motivation

-

Willingness

- Dominance

- Social good

Any characteristic

that helps people

cope with complex

organizational

situations is

probably related to leader performance

Mansoor Ullah Baig/IMsciencesSlide19

Leadership Outcomes

Leadership

Outcomes

Problem Solving

Performance

Criteria = originality & quality of solutions to problem situations – good problem solving involves creating solutions that are:

- Logical

- Effective

- Unique

- Go beyond given information

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

Mansoor Ullah Baig/IMsciencesSlide20

Skills Model

Skills Model of Leadership

Mansoor Ullah Baig/IMsciencesSlide21

Career Experiences

Career

Experiences

Challenging

Assignments

Mentoring

Appropriate

Training

Hands-on

Experience With

Novelty

Experience gained during career influences leader’s 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

Mansoor Ullah Baig/IMsciencesSlide22

Environmental Influences

Environmental

Influences

Factors

Outside of Leader’s

Control

Factors in a leader’s situation that lie outside of the leader’s competencies, characteristics, and experiences

Outdated technology

Subordinates’

Mansoor Ullah Baig/IMsciencesSlide23

How Does the Skills Approach Work?

Mansoor Ullah Baig/IMsciences

Focus of Skills Approach

Strengths Criticisms

ApplicationSlide24

Skills Approach

Focus is primarily

descriptive

– it describes leadership from skills perspective

Provides structure for understanding the nature of effective leadership

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 leader’s skilled competency in problem solving, social judgment & knowledge

Focus

Principal Research Perspectives

Mansoor Ullah Baig/IMsciencesSlide25

How does it work?

Mansoor Ullah Baig/IMsciences

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. Workers can improve their capabilities in these areas through training and experience. Although each leader’s personal attributes affect his or her skills, it is the leader’s skills themselves that are most important in addressing organizational problems.Slide26

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

Mansoor Ullah Baig/IMsciencesSlide27

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

Mansoor Ullah Baig/IMsciencesSlide28

Application

The Skills Approach provides a way to outline the skills of a leader

It is applicable to leaders at all levels within the organization

The skills inventory can provide insights into the individual’s leadership competencies

Test scores allow leaders to learn about areas in which they may wish to seek further training

Mansoor Ullah Baig/IMsciences