Hello everyone,
I would like to start off by owning my indecisiveness when considering and choosing only one theory. For
context, in my career, I have had roles that have immediate impact in people’s lives and thus I have
always felt as if I were responsible to put my best self in how and why I would choose to deliver my work
in a specific way.
l decided to choose the skills theory of leadership. While in the process, I have learned that this theory
was initially considered to be comprised of a shift from focus on personality traits to an emphasis on
skills and abilities that can be learned and developed. This theory consists of the basis that both
knowledge and abilities are needed in addition to certain personality traits to perform effective
leadership. The skills-based theory gained track after Robert Katz published an article in the Harvard
Business Review in 1955, titled "Skills of an Effective Administrator.” Katz approach addressed leadership
as a set of developable skills. I believe that the intersections between personality traits that are
perceived as reasonable and empathetic, along with technical, and conceptual skills make a compelling
case for a leader that justifies its position and decision-making process as one that is rooted in the
believe that one who possesses such skills (human, technical and conceptual). Teams feel compelled to
validate their leaders with trust on what translates into credentials in their organization.
As I navigated working with children and families in one of my previous jobs in teaching, I always felt the
need to have solid basis to validate the why and how I planned and executed my role. From lesson
planning to teaching, solid justification was required and a sizable chunk of it came from having the
human (social) skills to communicate, elicit and explain my processes and the technical skills to execute.
Leadership in teaching does not necessarily look the way it would in a corporate job. My feeling was that
leadership was collective process where we all pulled one another into a consensual direction or style as
we worked in groups in our lesson planning and worked very much in a human hive fashion.
Going back to the foundation of the skills theory, Katz’s ideas regarded three administrative skills:
technical, human, and conceptual. Although Katz views on this theory and its foundation laid out a
strong case for a skills-based approach to leadership, I lean more towards the more comprehensive skillbased model laid out by Dr. Michael Mumford and his colleagues later on in the late 1990’s. Mumford’s
work was rooted in the analysis of the underlying elements of effective performance. Mumford’s work
outlined a skill-based model of leadership characterized as a capability model for leadership that
examined the relationship between a leader’s skills, knowledge, and performance. Mumford’s model
relies on a leader’s ability to learn from their experiences. In teaching this is called the teaching cycle,
which encompasses reflecting and adjusting based on observations of the teaching process.
As I moved on and worked in other areas such as business and government administration, I found that,
similarly, the same learning process takes place in leadership. Working in government in a compliance
role where data analysis was the process that justified leading our team one direction or another, I found
that as I took part in the decision making process, I observed closely the need to be able to show with
skills, knowledge, and through the right combination of social skills, my validation to stand with my
decisions. The skill-based model of Mumford’s group has five components: competencies, individual
attributes, leadership outcomes, career experiences, and environmental influences. How often do we
pause and evaluate ourselves in these categories? As I have once again moved on in my career and
explored other industries, I do not feel like my self-evaluation process has changed since my teaching or
government administration days. I am currently a senior project manager of workforce and contractor
development. My position works closely with data analytics which provide direction to our unit and
develops our standards for quality assurance and continuous improvement. Although the nature of the
work I do has changed throughout the years, I have always chosen positions that have immediate impact
in the lives of the people in my community. Whether teaching children and adults, monitoring for local
enforcement of regulations that protect workers and ensure equitable access to contracting with the
government or fostering opportunities for employment and business development my leadership style is
rooted in continuously improving my conceptual, technical, and social skills so I can lead with
knowledge, experience, and prompt growth within my teams. This is why I chose this theory as the one
that resonates the most with me, because it implies that leaders should have the ability to learn from
their experiences and the responsibility to continuously grow and validate their positions with expertise
and experience.
References
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Bass, B. M. (1990). Bass & Stogdill’s handbook of leadership: Theory, research, and managerial
application (3rd ed.). New York: Free Press.
Connelly, M. S., Gilbert, J. A., Zaccaro, S. J., Threlfall, K. V., Marks, M. A., & Mumford, M. D.
(2000). Exploring the relationship of leadership skills and knowledge to leader performance.
Leadership Quarterly, 11(1), 65–86.
Katz, R. L. (1955). Skills of an effective administrator. Harvard Business Review, 33(1), 33–42.
Mumford, M. D., & Connelly, M. S. (1991). Leaders as creators: Leader performance and problem
solving in ill-defined domains. Leadership Quarterly, 2, 289–315.
Mumford, M. D., Zaccaro, S. J., Connelly, M. S., & Marks, M. A. (2000). Leadership skills:
Conclusions and future directions. Leadership Quarterly, 11(1), 155–170.