Katz’s Three-Skill Approach

Robert Katz identified three leadership skills called - technical skills, human skills, and conceptual skills as the basic personal skills essential for leadership. Leaders must possess these three skills that assist them in optimizing a leader's performance. Technical skills are related to the field, human skills are related to communicating with people and conceptual skills related to setting the vision.

What is Katz Three Skill Approach?

The skills theory of leadership emerged as a prominent theory in 1955 when Robert Katz published his paper "Skills of an Effective Administrator" in the "Harvard Business Review." The research was based on Katz’s own first-hand observations of executives in the workplace and on field research in administration. He suggested in the paper that effective administration or leadership depends on three basic personal skills: technical, human, and conceptual. He identified these three skill areas as the most important skills that the executives had in common and used on a regular basis.

What are the three Skill Areas?

Katz identified three skills; technical, human, and conceptual as the basic personal skills essential for leadership. Technical skills related to the field, human skills related to communicating with people, and conceptual skills related to setting the vision.

Skill 1: Technical Skills:

As defined by Katz in 1955, ‘Technical skill is knowledge about and proficiency in a specific type of work or activity. It includes competencies in a specialized area, analytical ability, and the ability to use appropriate tools and techniques’. Technical skills play an essential role in producing the actual products a company is designed to produce. Having appropriate technical skills signifies that the person is competent and knowledgeable with respect to the activities specific to an organization, the organization’s rules and standard operating procedures, and the organization’s products and services.

Examples of Technical Skills:

For a Software Company the following skills or knowledge areas can be considered as technical skills; Knowledge of Unix/Linux Operating System, Java/C++/Perl Programming Language, MySQL/Oracle Database Management, XML - Extensible Markup Language, HTML Skills, etc.

In an accounting firm, the technical skills might include an understanding of generally accepted accounting principles, accounting principles, knowledge of commercial laws, knowledge of tax laws, etc.

Attributes of Technical Skills:

Technical Skills refer to being knowledgeable proficient in a specific type of work or activity
It is the ability to work with things
Technical skill is proficiency, based on specific knowledge, in a particular area of work
Technical skills are most important at lower and middle levels of management
Technical skills are less important at upper/senior management levels

Skill 2: Human Skills:

As technical skills relate to the ability to working with things, similarly human skills relate to the ability to work with people. Human skills are people skills that enable the leader to work effectively with subordinates, peers, and superiors. It is the leader's expertise in interacting with others in a way that will enhance the successful completion of the task at hand. Consequently, leaders with higher levels of interpersonal skills are better able to adapt their own ideas to other people’s ideas, especially when this will aid in achieving organizational goals more quickly and efficiently. These leaders are more sensitive and empathetic to what motivates others, create an atmosphere of trust for their followers, and take others’ needs and motivations into account when deciding what to do to achieve organizational goals.

Human skills refer to the ability to work with people
It is being aware of one's own perspective on issues as well as the openness to hear and appreciate inputs of others on their perspectives
Leaders adapt their own ideas incorporating good themes from those of others
Create an atmosphere of trust where employees/followers can feel comfortable and empowered to contribute their best
Human skills are important at all the three levels of management – Lower, Middle and Senior

Examples of Human Skills:

Some human skills that are generally considered important are effective communication (both verbal and written), motivating others, and creation a positive attitude, development of cooperation and team spirit, etc.

Skill3: Conceptual Skills:

As a leader grows higher in the organizational ladder, the expectations from him are to provide strategic direction, create the vision, and motivate the folks to dedicatedly pursue the organizational goals. These are Conceptual skills that allow the leader to think through and work with ideas. Leaders with higher levels of conceptual skills are good at thinking through the ideas that form an organization and its vision for the future.

It is the ability to work with ideas and concepts
Creating visions, strategic plans and setting direction
These are cognitive, business, and strategic skills
Ability to work easily with abstractions and hypothetical situations
As leaders climb the career ladder, higher levels of conceptual leadership skills became necessary
This skill is most important for top managers
This skill is comparatively less important for middle managers
This skill is least important for supervisory managers
Necessary skill to climb the career ladder

Examples of Conceptual Skills:

Some conceptual skills that are generally considered important are creativity, decision making, wing to wing interconnectedness, thinking as a whole, strategic thinking, problem-solving, etc.

Advantages of Skills Approach to Leadership:

One of the major benefits of a skills-based theory of leadership is that it acknowledges that anyone can become a leader. Individuals only need to find relevant resources and work hard to develop the skills of a good leader. This is encouraging for people who are interested in gaining leadership effectiveness but do not possess the traits as proposed in other trait-based leadership theories. A skills-based leadership theory also provides a competency-based toolkit to organizations to recruit, train, and grow leaders in their organization by taking inventory of each potential leader's skills in the important areas.

Limitations of Skills Approach to Leadership:

Like other leadership models, The Skills Model also has its inherent limitations because the development of many of the skills might be dependent on personal traits, and based on individual personalities it might be easier or difficult for a person to develop certain skills. This model also focuses on identifying the skills rather than clarifying why some skills influence the leadership process.