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.
Action Centered Leadership is a model developed by John Adair and focuses on the three responsibilities of a leader which are achieving the task, managing the team, and managing individuals. All these action elements are mutually dependent and important for any leader.
Communication has as its central objective the transmission of meaning. The process of communication is successful only when the receiver understands an idea as the sender intended it. How does a message or an idea travel from one person to another? To transmit our message, we engage in a sensitive and complex process of communication, with different elements like sender, message, channels, receiver, noise, and feedback.
Idiosyncrasy Credit Model of Leadership builds upon the awareness that when the emergent leader meets the team's expectations, idiosyncrasy credits are awarded. These credits depend on how the leader fulfilled follower's expectations and what is the impact of the leader's decisions on the follower. When the balance of credits shifts, another leader will emerge.
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”.
Leadership Traits – A great List
What are the qualities and characteristics of a good leader? Great leaders possess core leadership traits and skills. The list includes the most important leadership qualities and skills to look for in a great leader. These are must-have traits of a powerful and successful leader, the qualities a leader possess to be great.
Socio-technical theory of leadership focus on the presence of two subsystems in every organization, the interrelatedness of social and technical aspects of an organization. Theory pertains to the social aspects of people and technical aspects of an organization, which means structure and processes within the organization.
Attribution Theory of Leadership
The attribution theory of leadership deals with the formation of individual opinions about the reasons for particular events or observations. People will always try to understand why people do what they do. The leader will make a judgment about his employees based on his attribution of the causes of the employees' performance. Individuals will also make inferences about the leader and react to poor performance by the leader.
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 social identity theory of leadership views leadership as a group process. Social identity is a person's sense of who they are based on their group membership. Social identity theory sets agendas and goals generated by social categorization, defines who we are based on processes associated with social identity, and motivates to conduct ourselves based on what followers think of the leader.
The style approach emphasizes that one style of leadership behaviour cannot be effective in all situations. Earlier theories treated leadership exclusively as a personality trait and behavior approach has widened the scope by including the behaviors of leaders and what they do in various situations. Explore how you can benefit from the concepts to understand your own behaviors and what are some of the leadership tools based on the style approach to leadership.
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