According to the three-skill approach of Katz, the individual's leadership abilities vary depending on where leaders are in a management hierarchy. The practical implication of skills approach to leadership is that leaders can improve their capabilities in leadership skills through training and experience.
The skills approach to leadership describes leadership from a skills standpoint and provides a structure for understanding the nature of effective leadership. According to three-skill approach of Katz the importance of certain leadership skills varies depending on where leaders are in a management hierarchy. In Mumford’s skill model theory he proposes that leadership effectiveness is directly correlated to a leader’s competencies in problem-solving skills, social judgment skills, and knowledge. The biggest takeaway from these studies was the outcome that these skills can be learned and developed. The practical implication of skills approach to leadership is that leaders can improve their capabilities in leadership skills through training and experience. Hence they assist in defining a structured approach to leadership education and development and help to frame the curricula of organizational training and leadership development programs.
The learner can use the characteristics of the skills defined in this approach to do a comparative self –evaluation of oneself to identify one’s strengths and weaknesses with regard to these three skills; technical, human, and conceptual. This assessment provides insight into one’s own leadership competencies and based on the development areas identified, learners can take specific trainings to enhance their leadership effectiveness.
There are many questionnaires available based on these studies to assess individual's skills. They provide a useful self-help, but a word of caution here is that they cannot be used in research because they have not been tested for reliability and validity. A typical questionnaire is the "Skills Inventory" and you can also take the quiz designed by TechnoFunc called TechnoFunc’s Skill Inventory to assess your skills and development areas.
Given below are the steps to define a leadership development plan for yourself using the key concepts from this approach:
1. Do a self-assessment – Use TechoFunc’s Quiz
2. Identify your strengths and weaknesses
3. Identify your training needs.
4. Explore the relevant area on TechnoFunc’s website to learn more about the skillset you need to develop and explore the tools provided here to increase your effectiveness.
The open systems model of leadership acknowledges the influence of the environment on organizations. An open system regularly exchanges feedback with its external environment. The environment also provides key resources that are necessary to sustain and lead to change and survival. Leadership in an open system should focus on influence, open communication, and patterns to control expanding the number of variables created by external dynamics.
Leadership traits refer to personal qualities that define effective leaders. Here are the major leadership qualities that can make someone a good leader. Five key traits that are common in leaders can be learned and sharpened with time.
The great man theory of leadership is a 19th-century idea that states a person is either a natural-born leader or not. Some people are born with the necessary leadership attributes that help them create a great impact on society, politics, or the military. The theory focuses on identifying the innate qualities and characteristics possessed by great men.
The Psychodynamic Approach to leadership focuses on leaders building an understanding of their personality characteristics to know why they act or react in certain ways. Psychodynamics theory aims to explain the dynamics of human behavior in which lies the essence of leadership, by analyzing various motives that govern a person's behavior. This information can be used to develop leaders and followers by understanding their responses based on their personalities.
Process & Stages of Creativity
Creative ideas do not come just like that. There is a process to it. There are a number of techniques of creativity to support the generation of ideas but the widely practiced ones are brainstorming and lateral thinking. Most innovations are not so much the product of sudden insights as they are the result of a conscious process that often goes through multiple stages. The creative process can be divided into four stages of preparation, incubation, evaluation, and implementation.
The Vroom-Yetton model is designed to optimize for the current situation the leadership style for best decision-making. Its a decision model formulated with contribution from Arthur Jago on how to make group decisions. The leader must gather information from the team prior to making the decision and involves more people in the decision process.
Michigan Leadership Studies led to behavioral Leadership Theory as a result of a leadership study conducted at the University of Michigan. Michigan studies identified three important behaviors of leadership called task-oriented behavior, relationship-oriented behavior, and participative leadership. Two leadership styles associated with studies are employee orientation and production orientation.
Leader-Participation Model provides a set of rules to determine the form and amount of participative decision making. It helps identifies different ways a decision can be made based on the degree of follower participation. It proposes a method for leaders to involve all members of the organization work together to make decisions.
Leadership Participation Inventory (LPI)
Kouzes and Posner introduced the Leadership Participation Inventory model of Transformational leadership. This model is also known as Kouzes and Posner's Leadership Challenge Model. They identified five practices of exemplary leadership - Model the Way, Inspire a Shared Vision, Challenge the Process, Enabling Others to Act, and Encourage the Heart.
Five Factors Model (FFM) also known as Five-Factor Personality Model is based on five broad personality traits which are extraversion, neuroticism, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness represented by acronym OCEAN, these traits are often referred to as the “Big Five”.
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