Chapter 3.

Skills Approach

Robert Katz (1995) was the first person to suggested that leadership is a set of skills that can be
developed. Leadership skills are one’s ability to use their knowledge and capabilities to achieve
the goal and it can be developed. Thus, an effective leader should be able to utilize all their
knowledge and competencies to solve the problem within their organization.

Three-Skill Approach (Katz, 1955)

Technical, human, and conceptual skills are the basic personal skills that is required by an
effective leader. These skills are different from leaders’ traits.
 Skills: what leaders can achieve
 Traits: who leaders are

Technical Skill
Technical skill shows how knowledgeable and proficient is a person in a particular type of work.
It includes the ability to analyse the problem and work with appropriate tools and technique to
solve the problem. This skill is needed the most in lower and middle lower management.

Human Skill
Human skill shows how good a person in working with others to perform the task and achieve the
organization’s goals. A leader must consider others’ needs and be aware of others motivation in
making decisions. Human skill is required in all levels management.

Conceptual Skill
Conceptual skill shows how capable is a leader in working with ideas and concepts. A leader with
a good conceptual skill can understand the goals and economic principle that is affecting the
organization and articulate it to their peers. In other words, conceptual skill helps leaders in shaping
the vision and strategic plan of their organizations. Therefore, this skill is needed by the upper-
level management the most.

Skill Model
 Skill model investigates how a leader’s knowledge and skills are affecting their performance
(Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, et al., 2000).
 It suggests that the leadership of a leader can be improved by education and experience.
 The skill-based model has five components: competencies, individual attributes, leadership
outcomes, career experiences, and environmental influences.
1. Competencies
Problem solving skills, social judgement skills and knowledge are three competencies that
determine leader's effective performance.

a. Problem-solving Skills:
Problem solving skills represent a leader’s capability and creativity in solving a new and
unexpected problem in their organization. It requires the leader to be able to:
 Define serious problems
 Collect information related to the problem
 Develop new knowledge about the problem
 Develop methods to solve the problem

A leader needs to know their leadership capacities when they try to implement potential
solutions to their organization’s problems.

b. Social Judgment Skills

Social judgement skills enable the leaders to understand how to work with people and win
their support to implement change within the organization. Social judgment skills are
classified into:
 Perspective taking: recognizing others’ view toward a specific problem or solution.
 Social perceptiveness: aware of others’ differing needs, goals and demands in the
organization.
 Behavioural flexibility: ability to adapt the behaviour accordingly to the changes in
the circumstances.
 Social Performance: How well leader acts as a mediator when conflict over changes
occurs.
 c. Knowledge
Knowledge is the information that is accumulated over time through learning and solving
problems. Knowledge influence how the leaders solve a problem and it is related to the
ability of the leaders in determining a complex problem and its solution.

2. Individual Attributes
There are four individual attributes that affect leadership skills and knowledge: general cognitive
ability, crystallized cognitive ability, motivation, and personality.

a. General Cognitive Ability

General cognitive ability is the intelligence that develops until early adulthood and then
deteriorates with age. It involves perceptual processing, information processing, general
reasoning skills, creative and divergent thinking capacities, and memory skills.

b. Crystallised Cognitive Ability

It is a type of intelligence that can be acquired through experience and grows continuously
over time. This ability allows a person to understand complex problem, pick up a new skill
and information, as well as excel in communicate their idea to others (Connelly et al., 2000).

c. Motivation
Three aspects of motivation that are essential to a leader:
•Eager to solve complex problems in the organization.
•Eager to show dominance and influence their peers.
•Dedicated to improving the organization’s value.

d. Personality
Personality can affect a leader’s performance and motivation in trying to solve the problems
in their organization. For example, when the conflict arises, a person with high confidence
may cope with the pressure better than the one that has low confidence.

3. Leadership outcomes
The outcomes of leadership are strongly affected by the leader’s capability. It is classified into
two: effective problem-solving and performance.

a. Effective problem solving

Good problem solving revolve around creating logical, uncommon and effective solutions
to a problem (Zaccaro et al., 2000). The standard for good problem solving is determined
by the quality and originality of the proposed solution.

b. Performance
Performance shows how successful the leader in doing their assigned task.
4. Career experiences
Career experiences can affect the leaders’ characteristics positively. The experience of the leaders
in dealing with the complex problem in their organization can improve their skills and knowledge.

5. Environmental influences
Environmental influences can be internal and external. Factors such as technology, facilities,
skilled subordinates and communication are the factors that affect leadership performance
internally. In contrast, external environment influences come from the factors that cannot be
controlled by the leaders such as economic, political, social issues and natural disasters.