Chapter-3 & 4
Leadership Skills
© 2012 SAGE Publications, Inc.
Discussion Questions
What
skills do you think are most
important for leaders to possess?
Why
have traits of leaders historically
received more attention than leadership
skills?
© 2012 SAGE Publications, Inc.
Question: 07
What Are Leadership Skills?
 Leadership
skills refer to learned
competencies that leaders are able to
demonstrate in performance.
 Leadership skills:
Give people the capacity to influence others
o Are a critical component in successful leadership
o
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Question: 07
Core Leadership Skills
 Administrative
& Technical Skills
Interpersonal/Human
 Conceptual
Skills
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Skills
Question: 08
Administrative Skills
The
competencies needed to carry out the
purposes & goals of the organization
o
Involve planning, organizing work, coordinating
work activities
o
Allow leaders to accomplish the mundane, but
critically important, aspects of leadership
 Divided
into three specific skill sets:
1.Managing People
2.Managing Resources
3.Showing Technical Competence
© 2012 SAGE Publications, Inc.
Managing People
An
effective leader connects with people &
understands the tasks, the skills required to
perform them, & the overall environment.
oIncludes helping employees
to work as a team
motivating them to do their best
promoting satisfying relationships among employees
o
Occupies the most time
o
Involves communicating with multiple stakeholders
 “Management
by walking around”
© 2012 SAGE Publications, Inc.
Human Skills
 Human
skills – having knowledge about and
being able to work with people.
◦ 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
© 2012 SAGE Publications, Inc.
Human Skills
Examples of human (or people) skills:
 Assist
group members in working cooperatively as a
group to achieve common goals
 Adapt
 Create
your own ideas to those of others
an atmosphere of trust and comfort
 Encourage
 Being
involvement in planning
sensitive to the needs of others
 Motivating
others
© 2012 SAGE Publications, Inc.
Managing Resources
 Resources
can be money, supplies, equipment,
space, etc., anything needed to operate an
organization.
 Managing resources requires a leader to be
competent in both obtaining and allocating
resources. Ex.: cross-country coach buying new
uniforms for the team
 T h e ultimate responsibility of resource management
rests on the leader.
© 2012 SAGE Publications, Inc.
Question: 09
Technical Competence
 Technical
competence involves having
specialized knowledge about our work.
o
A leader with technical competence understands the
intricacies of how the organization functions.
o
A leader is more effective when he or she has
knowledge about the activities subordinates are
asked to perform.
o
A leader is not required to have technical competence
in every situation.
© 2012 SAGE Publications, Inc.
Question: 09
Technical Competence

Technical skill - having knowledge about and being proficient in a
specific type of work or activity.
◦ Specialized competencies
◦ Analytical ability
◦ Use of appropriate tools and techniques

Technical skills involve hands-on ability with a product or process

Most important at lower levels of management
© 2012 SAGE Publications, Inc.
Question: 09
Technical Skills
Examples of technical skills:

Competent in a specialized area, analytical ability, and the
ability to use appropriate tools and techniques

Understanding what is needed to get the job done;
understanding the physical operation

Hands-on activity with basic product or process knowledge;
producing the actual products a company is designed to
produce
© 2012 SAGE Publications, Inc.
Question: 10
Interpersonal Skills
Interpersonal Skills
 People
skills—the abilities that help a
leader to work effectively with subordinates,
peers, & superiors, to accomplish the
organization’s goals
© 2012 SAGE Publications, Inc.
Question: 10
Interpersonal Skills
 Divided
into three specific skill sets:
1. Being Socially Perceptive
2. Showing Emotional Intelligence
3. Managing Interpersonal Conflict
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Being Socially Perceptive
 Being
socially perceptive involves
understanding the unique needs, goals,
& demands of different constituencies
 Having
insight into & awareness of:
owhat is important to others
ohow they are motivated
othe problems they face
ohow they react to change
© 2012 SAGE Publications, Inc.
Showing Emotional Intelligence
 Emotional Intelligence:
oa person’s ability to understand his or her own &
others’ emotions
oapply this to life’s tasks
 Emotional intelligence is the ability to:
operceive & express emotions
ouse emotions to facilitate thinking
ounderstand & reason with emotions
omanage emotions effectively
© 2012 SAGE Publications, Inc.
Enhancing Emotional Intelligence
1. Leaders need to work on becoming aware of
their own emotions.
2. A leader should train to become aware of the
emotions of others.
3. A leader needs to learn how to regulate his or
her emotions & put them to good use.
© 2012 SAGE Publications, Inc.
 Conflict
creates the need for change and occurs as the
result of change.
 Conflict
is the struggle between two or more individuals
over perceived differences regarding substantive issues
or relational issues.
 Although
uncomfortable, conflict is not unhealthy nor
necessarily bad.
If
conflict is managed effectively there is a reductionof
stress, an increase in creative problem solving, and
improved group relations.
Handling Conflict
© 2012 SAGE Publications, Inc.
Question: 11
Conceptual Skills
 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
© 2012 SAGE Publications, Inc.
Question: 11
Conceptual Skills
 Conceptual
skills involve the thinking or
cognitive aspects of leadership, such as
concepts and ideas.

Divided into three specific skill sets:
oProblem Solving
oStrategic Planning
oCreating Vision
© 2012 SAGE Publications, Inc.
Question: 11
Conceptual Skills
Examples of conceptual skills:

Ability to work with ideas and concepts; able to talk about the
ideas that shape an organization and the intricacies involved

Good at putting the company’s goals into words and can
understand and express the economic principles that affect the
company

Create a vision and strategic plan for the organization

Understanding what a company stands for and where it should
be going
© 2012 SAGE Publications, Inc.
Problem Solving
 Problem
Solving Skills are a leader’s cognitive
ability to take corrective action in a problem
situation to meet desired objectives.
 Skills
include the following:
o identifying the problem
o generating alternative solutions
o selecting the best solution from among the alternatives
o implementing that solution
© 2012 SAGE Publications, Inc.
Strategic Planning
 Strategic
planning requires developing careful plans
of action based on available resources & personnel
to achieve a goal
Boal
& Hooijberg (2000) suggest that strategic
leaders need to have:
o The ability to learn—capacity to absorb new information and
apply it towards new goals
o The capacity to adapt—being able to respond quickly to
changes in the environment
o Managerial wisdom—A deep understanding of people and the
environment in which they work
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Creating Vision
 Creating
vision requires the capacity to
challenge people with compelling visions of
the future.
 To
create vision, a leader needs to:
o set forth a picture of a future that is better than the present
o move others toward a new set of ideals & values that will lead
to the future

A leader must implement the vision & model
the principles set forth in the vision
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Environmental Influences

Factors in a leader’s situation that lie outside
of his or her competencies, characteristics,
and experiences
– Internal environmental influences – Ex.
Outdated technology, skill level of
employees
– External environmental influences – Ex.
Economic, political or social issues, natural
disasters
© 2012 SAGE Publications, Inc.
Skills Approach 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
© 2012 SAGE Publications, Inc.
Skills Approach Criticisms
 Breadth
of the skills approach appears to
extend beyond the boundaries of leadership,
making it more general, less precise
 Wea k
in predictive value; does not explain how
skills lead to effective leadership performance
 Skills
model includes individual attributes that
are trait-like
© 2012 SAGE Publications, Inc.
Traits and Skills
TRAITS
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Visionary
Strong-willed
Diligent
Inspirational
Purpose-driven
Role models
Symbols of hope
Intelligence
Alertness
Insight
Responsibility
Initiative
Persistence
Self-Confident
Sociable
SKILLS
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Organized
Able to coordinate efforts
Understand and manage
resources
Understand technical needs
Motivational
Purpose-driven
Analytical
Intelligent
Create trust
Manage interpersonal conflict
Problem Solving
Strategic Planning
Visionary
Self-Confident
Socially Perceptive
© 2012 SAGE Publications, Inc.
What is the Application of Skills
Approach?
The
Skills Approach provides a way todelineate
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
© 2012 SAGE Publications, Inc.
Summary
 Administrative,
interpersonal, & conceptual
skills play a major role in effective
leadership.
 Through
practice & hard work, we can all
become better leaders by improving our
skills in each of these areas.
© 2012 SAGE Publications, Inc.
In Class Exercise
You are heading up a team of six people who are working all over
the United States and in Europe. You and your team
communicate regularly through email, phone calls, and in videoconferencing meetings. You, as the leader, must schedule, attend
and facilitate every meeting.
The goal is to create a collaborative presentation on a project that
you have been working on for the past six months. You will
present in person (all team members will fly in to attend) at an
annual meeting that convenes in two weeks.
Identify as many leadership skills as you can that you MUST use
on a regular basis to accomplish your goal.
Create this list and define HOW you use each skill.
© 2012 SAGE Publications, Inc.
Thanks