CHAPTER 2 2.1 Description Of interest to scholars throughout the 20th century, the trait approach was one o f the first systematic attempts to study leadership. In the early 20th century, lead ership traits were studied to determine what made certain people great leaders. The theories that were developed were called “great man” theories because they focused on identifying the innate qualities and characteristics possessed by great social, political, and military leaders (e.g., Catherine the Great, Mohandas Gandhi, Indira Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, Joan of Arc, and Napoleon Bonaparte). It was bel ieved that people were born with these traits, and that only the “great” people po ssessed them. During this time, research concentrated on determining the specifi c traits that clearly differentiated leaders from followers (Bass, 2008; Jago, 1982) . In the mid20th century, the trait approach was challenged by research that questioned the universality of leadership traits. In a major review, Stogdill (1948) suggested that no consistent set of traits differentiated leaders from nonleaders across a variety of situations. An individual with leadership traits who was a leader in one situati on might not be a leader in another situation. Rather than being a quality that ind ividuals possess, leadership was reconceptualized as a relationship between peo ple in a social situation. Personal factors related to leadership continued to be im portant, but researchers contended that these factors were to be considered as re lative to the requirements of the situation. The trait approach has generated much interest among researchers for its explan ation of how traits influence leadership (Bryman, 1992). For example, Kirkpatric k and Locke (1991) went so far as to claim that effective leaders are actually disti nct types of people. Lord, DeVader, and Alliger (1986) found that traits were stro ngly associated with individuals’ perceptions of leadership. More recently, Dinh a nd Lord (2012) examined the relationship between leadership effectiveness and followers’ perception of leadership traits. The trait approach has earned new interest through the current emphasis given by many researchers to visionary and charismatic leadership (see Bass, 2008; Be nnis & Nanus, 2007; Jacquart & Antonakis, 2015; Nadler & Tushman, 2012; Zacca ro, 2007; Zaleznik, 1977). Charismatic leadership catapulted to the forefront of p ublic attention with the 2008 election of the United States’ first African American president, Barack Obama, who is perceived by many to be charismatic, among ma ny other attributes. In a study to determine what distinguishes charismatic leade rs from others, Jung and Sosik (2006) found that charismatic leaders consistently possess traits of selfmonitoring, engagement in impression management, motivation to attain social p ower, and motivation to attain selfactualization. In short, the trait approach is alive and well. It began with an emph asis on identifying the qualities of great persons, shifted to include the impact of situations on leadership, and, currently, has shifted back to reemphasize the criti cal role of traits in effective leadership. Although the research on traits spanned the entire 20th century, a good overvie w of this approach is found in two surveys completed by Stogdill (1948, 1974). In his first survey, Stogdill analyzed and synthesized more than 124 trait studies co nducted between 1904 and 1947. In his second study, he analyzed another 163 st udies completed between 1948 and 1970. By taking a closer look at each of these reviews, we can obtain a clearer picture of how individuals’ traits contribute to t he leadership process. Stogdill’s first survey identified a group of important leadership traits that were r elated to how individuals in various groups became leaders. His results showed t hat an average individual in a leadership role is different from an average group member with regard to the following eight traits: intelligence, alertness, insight, r esponsibility, initiative, persistence, self-confidence, and sociability. The findings of Stogdill’s first survey also indicated that an individual does not be come a leader solely because that individual possesses certain traits. Rather, the t raits that leaders possess must be relevant to situations in which the leader is fun ctioning. As stated earlier, leaders in one situation may not necessarily be leaders in another situation. Findings showed that leadership was not a passive state but resulted from a working relationship between the leader and other group memb ers. This research marked the beginning of a new approach to leadership researc h that focused on leadership behaviors and leadership situations. Stogdill’s second survey, published in 1974, analyzed 163 new studies and comp ared the findings of these studies to the findings he had reported in his first surve y. The second survey was more balanced in its description of the role of traits an d leadership. Whereas the first survey implied that leadership is determined prin cipally by situational factors and not traits, the second survey argued more mode rately that both traits and situational factors were determinants of leadership. In essence, the second survey validated the original trait idea that a leader’s charact eristics are indeed a part of leadership. Similar to the first survey, Stogdill’s second survey identified traits that were posi tively associated with leadership. The list included the following 10 characteristi cs: 1. drive for responsibility and task completion; 2. vigor and persistence in pursuit of goals; 3. risk taking and originality in problem solving; 4. drive to exercise initiative in social situations; 5. self-confidence and sense of personal identity; 6. willingness to accept consequences of decision and action; 7. readiness to absorb interpersonal stress; 8. willingness to tolerate frustration and delay; 9. ability to influence other people’s behavior; and 10. nd. capacity to structure social interaction systems to the purpose at ha Mann (1959) conducted a similar study that examined more than 1,400 findings regarding traits and leadership in small groups, but he placed less emphasis on h ow situational factors influenced leadership. Although tentative in his conclusion s, Mann suggested that certain traits could be used to distinguish leaders from no nleaders. His results identified leaders as strong in the following six traits: intelli gence, masculinity, adjustment, dominance, extraversion, and conservatism. Lord et al. (1986) reassessed Mann’s (1959) findings using a more sophisticated procedure called metaanalysis. Lord et al. found that intelligence, masculinity, and dominance were sig nificantly related to how individuals perceived leaders. From their findings, the a uthors argued strongly that traits could be used to make discriminations consiste ntly across situations between leaders and nonleaders. Both of these studies were conducted during periods in American history where male leadership was prevalent in most aspects of business and society. In Chapter 15, we explore more contemporary research regarding the role of gender in lead ership, and we look at whether traits such as masculinity and dominance still bea r out as important factors in distinguishing between leaders and nonleaders. Yet another review argues for the importance of leadership traits: Kirkpatrick an d Locke (1991, p. 59) contended that “it is unequivocally clear that leaders are no t like other people.” From a qualitative synthesis of earlier research, Kirkpatrick and Locke postulated that leaders differ from nonleaders on six traits: drive, moti vation, integrity, confidence, cognitive ability, and task knowledge. According to t hese writers, individuals can be born with these traits, they can learn them, or bo th. It is these six traits that make up the “right stuff” for leaders. Kirkpatrick and L ocke asserted that leadership traits make some people different from others, and this difference should be recognized as an important part of the leadership proce ss. 2.2 How does the Trait Approach Work? The trait approach is very different from the other approaches discussed in subse quent chapters because it focuses exclusively on the leader, not on the followers or the situation. This makes the trait approach theoretically more straightforwar d than other approaches. In essence, the trait approach is concerned with what tr aits leaders exhibit and who has these traits. The trait approach does not lay out a set of hypotheses or principles about what kind of leader is needed in a certain situation or what a leader should do, given a particular set of circumstances. Instead, this approach emphasizes that having a l eader with a certain set of traits is crucial to having effective leadership. It is the l eader and the leader’s traits that are central to the leadership process. The trait approach suggests that organizations will work better if the people in m anagerial positions have designated leadership profiles. To find the right people, i t is common for organizations to use trait assessment instruments. The assumpti on behind these procedures is that selecting the right people will increase organi zational effectiveness. Organizations can specify the characteristics or traits that are important to them for particular positions and then use trait assessment mea sures to determine whether an individual fits their needs. The trait approach is also used for personal awareness and development. By anal yzing their own traits, managers can gain an idea of their strengths and weakness es, and can get a feel for how others in the organization see them. A trait assessm ent can help managers determine whether they have the qualities to move up or t o move to other positions in the company. A trait assessment gives individuals a clearer picture of who they are as leaders a nd how they fit into the organizational hierarchy. In areas where their traits are l acking, leaders can try to make changes in what they do or where they work to in crease their traits’ potential impact. Near the end of the chapter, a leadership instrument is provided that you can use to assess your leadership traits. This instrument is typical of the kind of assessm ents that companies use to evaluate individuals’ leadership potential. As you will discover by completing this instrument, trait measures are a good way to assess your own characteristics. 2.3 Strengths The trait approach has several identifiable strengths. First, the trait approach is i ntuitively appealing. It fits clearly with our notion that leaders are the individuals who are out front and leading the way in our society. The image in the popular p ress and community at large is that leaders are a special kind of people— people with gifts who can do extraordinary things. The trait approach is consiste nt with this perception because it is built on the premise that leaders are differen t, and their difference resides in the special traits they possess. People have a nee d to see their leaders as gifted people, and the trait approach fulfills this need. A second strength of the trait approach is that it has a century of research to back it up. No other theory can boast of the breadth and depth of studies conducted o n the trait approach. The strength and longevity of this line of research give the tr ait approach a measure of credibility that other approaches lack. Out of this abun dance of research has emerged a body of data that points to the important role of various traits in the leadership process. Another strength, more conceptual in nature, results from the way the trait appr oach highlights the leader component in the leadership process. Leadership is co mposed of leaders, followers, and situations, but the trait approach is devoted to only the first of these— leaders. Although this is also a potential weakness, by focusing exclusively on the role of the leader in leadership the trait approach has been able to provide us wi th a deeper and more intricate understanding of how the leader and the leader’s t raits are related to the leadership process. Last, the trait approach has given us some benchmarks for what we need to look for if we want to be leaders. It identifies what traits we should have and whether the traits we do have are the best traits for leadership. Based on the findings of th is approach, trait assessment procedures can be used to offer invaluable informat ion to supervisors and managers about their strengths and weaknesses and ways to improve their overall leadership effectiveness. 2.4 Criticisms In addition to its strengths, the trait approach has several weaknesses. First and f oremost is the failure of the trait approach to delimit a definitive list of leadershi p traits. Although an enormous number of studies have been conducted over the past 100 years, the findings from these studies have been ambiguous and uncerta in at times. Furthermore, the list of traits that has emerged appears endless. This is obvious from Table 2.1, which lists a multitude of traits. In fact, these are only a sample of the many leadership traits that were studied. Another criticism is that the trait approach has failed to take situations into acco unt. As Stogdill (1948) pointed out more than 60 years ago, it is difficult to isolate a set of traits that are characteristic of leaders without also factoring situational effects into the equation. People who possess certain traits that make them leade rs in one situation may not be leaders in another situation. Some people may hav e the traits that help them emerge as leaders but not the traits that allow them to maintain their leadership over time. In other words, the situation influences lead ership. It is therefore difficult to identify a universal set of leadership traits in isol ation from the context in which the leadership occurs. A third criticism, derived from the prior two criticisms, is that this approach has r esulted in highly subjective determinations of the most important leadership trai ts. Because the findings on traits have been so extensive and broad, there has bee n much subjective interpretation of the meaning of the data. This subjectivity is r eadily apparent in the many self-help, practiceoriented management books. For example, one author might identify ambition an d creativity as crucial leadership traits; another might identify empathy and calm ness. In both cases, it is the author’s subjective experience and observations that are the basis for the identified leadership traits. These books may be helpful to re aders because they identify and describe important leadership traits, but the met hods used to generate these lists of traits are weak. To respond to people’s need f or a set of definitive traits of leaders, authors have set forth lists of traits, even if t he origins of these lists are not grounded in strong, reliable research. Research on traits can also be criticized for failing to look at traits in relationship to leadership outcomes. This research has emphasized the identification of traits, but has not addressed how leadership traits affect group members and their wor k. In trying to ascertain universal leadership traits, researchers have focused on t he link between specific traits and leader emergence, but they have not tried to li nk leader traits with other outcomes such as productivity or employee satisfactio n. For example, trait research does not provide data on whether leaders who hav e high intelligence and strong integrity have better results than leaders without t hese traits. The trait approach is weak in describing how leaders’ traits affect the outcomes of groups and teams in organizational settings. A final criticism of the trait approach is that it is not a useful approach for trainin g and development for leadership. Even if definitive traits could be identified, tea ching new traits is not an easy process because traits are not easily changed. For example, it is not reasonable to send managers to a training program to raise thei r IQ or to train them to become extraverted. The point is that traits are largely fix ed psychological structures, and this limits the value of teaching and leadership t raining. 2.5 Application Despite its shortcomings, the trait approach provides valuable information about leadership. It can be applied by individuals at all levels and in all types of organiz ations. Although the trait approach does not provide a definitive set of traits, it d oes provide direction regarding which traits are good to have if one aspires to a l eadership position. By taking trait assessments and other similar questionnaires, people can gain insight into whether they have certain traits deemed important f or leadership, and they can pinpoint their strengths and weaknesses with regard to leadership. As we discussed previously, managers can use information from the trait approa ch to assess where they stand in their organization and what they need to do to s trengthen their position. Trait information can suggest areas in which their perso nal characteristics are very beneficial to the company and areas in which they ma y want to get more training to enhance their overall approach. Using trait inform ation, managers can develop a deeper understanding of who they are and how th ey will affect others in the organization. 2.6 Case Studies In this section, three case studies (Cases 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3) are provided to illustrat e the trait approach and to help you understand how the trait approach can be us ed in making decisions in organizational settings. The settings of the cases are di verse— directing research and development at a large snack food company, running an of fice supply business, and being head of recruitment for a large bank— but all of the cases deal with trait leadership. At the end of each case, you will fin d questions that will help in analyzing the cases. Case 2.1: Choosing a New Director of Research Sandra Coke is vice president for research and development at Great Lakes Foods (GLF), a large snack food company that has approximately 1,000 employees. As a result of a recent reorganization, Sandra must choose the new director of resear ch. The director will report directly to Sandra and will be responsible for develop ing and testing new products. The research division of GLF employs about 200 pe ople. The choice of directors is important because Sandra is receiving pressure fr om the president and board of GLF to improve the company’s overall growth and productivity. Sandra has identified three candidates for the position. Each candidate is at the s ame managerial level. She is having difficulty choosing one of them because each has very strong credentials. Alexa Smith is a longtime employee of GLF who start ed parttime in the mailroom while in high school. After finishing school, Alexa worked in as many as 10 different positions throughout the company to become manager o f new product marketing. Performance reviews of Alexa’s work have repeatedly described her as being very creative and insightful. In her tenure at GLF, Alexa ha s developed and brought to market four new product lines. Alexa is also known t hroughout GLF as being very persistent about her work: When she starts a projec t, she stays with it until it is finished. It is probably this quality that accounts for t he success of each of the four new products with which she has been involved. A second candidate for the new position is Kelsey Metts, who has been with GLF f or five years and is manager of quality control for established products. Kelsey ha s a reputation for being very bright. Before joining GLF, she received her MBA at Harvard, graduating at the top of her class. People talk about Kelsey as the kind o f person who will be president of her own company someday. Kelsey is also very personable. On all her performance reviews, she received extrahigh scores on sociability and human relations. There isn’t a supervisor in the co mpany who doesn’t have positive things to say about how comfortable it is to wo rk with Kelsey. Since joining GLF, Kelsey has been instrumental in bringing two n ew product lines to market. Thomas Santiago, the third candidate, has been with GLF for 10 years and is ofte n consulted by upper management regarding strategic planning and corporate di rection setting. Thomas has been very involved in establishing the vision for GLF and is a company person all the way. He believes in the values of GLF, and activel y promotes its mission. The two qualities that stand out above the rest in Thomas ’s performance reviews are his honesty and integrity. Employees who have work ed under his supervision consistently report that they feel they can trust Thomas to be fair and consistent. Thomas is highly respected at GLF. In his tenure at the c ompany, Thomas has been involved in some capacity with the development of th ree new product lines. The challenge confronting Sandra is to choose the best person for the newly esta blished director’s position. Because of the pressure she feels from upper manage ment, Sandra knows she must select the best leader for the new position. Questions 1. Based on the information provided about the trait approach in Table s 2.1 and 2.2, if you were Sandra, whom would you select? 2. In what ways is the trait approach helpful in this type of selection? 3. In what ways are the weaknesses of the trait approach highlighted in this case? Case 2.2: A Remarkable Turnaround Carol Baines was married for 20 years to the owner of the Baines Company until he died in a car accident. After his death, Carol decided not to sell the business bu t to try to run it herself. Before the accident, her only involvement in the business was in informal discussions with her husband over dinner, although she has a co llege degree in business, with a major in management. The Baines Company was one of three office supply stores in a city with a populat ion of 200,000 people. The other two stores were owned by national chains. Bain es was not a large company, and employed only five people. Baines had stable sal es of about $200,000 a year, serving mostly the smaller companies in the city. Th e firm had not grown in a number of years and was beginning to feel the pressure of the advertising and lower prices of the national chains. For the first six months, Carol spent her time familiarizing herself with the emplo yees and the operations of the company. Next, she did a citywide analysis of com panies that had reason to purchase office supplies. Based on her understanding o f the company’s capabilities and her assessment of the potential market for their products and services, Carol developed a specific set of short-term and longterm goals for the company. Behind all of her planning, Carol had a vision that Ba ines could be a viable, healthy, and competitive company. She wanted to carry on the business that her husband had started, but more than that she wanted it to gr ow. Over the first five years, Carol invested significant amounts of money in advertisi ng, sales, and services. These efforts were well spent because the company began to show rapid growth immediately. Because of the growth, the company hired an other 20 people. The expansion at Baines was particularly remarkable because of another major h ardship Carol had to confront. Carol was diagnosed with breast cancer a year afte r her husband died. The treatment for her cancer included two months of radiati on therapy and six months of strong chemotherapy. Although the side effects incl uded hair loss and fatigue, Carol continued to manage the company throughout t he ordeal. Despite her difficulties, Carol was successful. Under the strength of her leadership, the growth at Baines continued for 10 consecutive years. Interviews with new and old employees at Baines revealed much about Carol’s le adership. Employees said that Carol was a very solid person. She cared deeply ab out others and was fair and considerate. They said she created a familylike atmosphere at Baines. Few employees had quit Baines since Carol took over. Carol was devoted to all the employees, and she supported their interests. For ex ample, the company sponsored a softball team in the summer and a basketball te am in the winter. Others described Carol as a strong person. Even though she had cancer, she continued to be positive and interested in them. She did not get depr essed about the cancer and its side effects, even though coping with cancer was d ifficult. Employees said she was a model of strength, goodness, and quality. At age 55, Carol turned the business over to her two sons. She continues to act as the president but does not supervise the day-today operations. The company is doing more than $3.1 million in sales, and it outp aces the two chain stores in the city. Questions 1. How would you describe Carol’s leadership traits? 2. y? How big a part did Carol’s traits play in the expansion of the compan 3. Would Carol be a leader in other business contexts? Case 2.3: Recruiting for the Bank Pat Nelson is the assistant director of human resources in charge of recruitment f or Central Bank, a large, fullservice banking institution. One of Pat’s major responsibilities each spring is to vi sit as many college campuses as he can to interview graduating seniors for credit analyst positions in the commercial lending area at Central Bank. Although the n umber varies, he usually ends up hiring about 20 new people, most of whom com e from the same schools, year after year. Pat has been doing recruitment for the bank for more than 10 years, and he enjoy s it very much. However, for the upcoming spring he is feeling increased pressure from management to be particularly discriminating about whom he recommend s hiring. Management is concerned about the retention rate at the bank because i n recent years as many as 25% of the new hires have left. Departures after the fir st year have meant lost training dollars and strain on the staff who remain. Altho ugh management understands that some new hires always leave, the executives are not comfortable with the present rate, and they have begun to question the re cruitment and hiring procedures. The bank wants to hire people who can be groomed for higherlevel leadership positions. Although certain competencies are required of entrylevel credit analysts, the bank is equally interested in skills that will allow individ uals to advance to upper management positions as their careers progress. In the recruitment process, Pat always looks for several characteristics. First, app licants need to have strong interpersonal skills, they need to be confident, and th ey need to show poise and initiative. Next, because banking involves fiduciary res ponsibilities, applicants need to have proper ethics, including a strong sense of th e importance of confidentiality. In addition, to do the work in the bank, they need to have strong analytical and technical skills, and experience in working with co mputers. Last, applicants need to exhibit a good work ethic, and they need to sho w commitment and a willingness to do their job even in difficult circumstances. Pat is fairly certain that he has been selecting the right people to be leaders at Ce ntral Bank, yet upper management is telling him to reassess his hiring criteria. Al though he feels that he has been doing the right thing, he is starting to question h imself and his recruitment practices. Questions 1. Based on ideas described in the trait approach, do you think Pat is lo oking for the right characteristics in the people he hires? 2. Could it be that the retention problem raised by upper management is unrelated to Pat’s recruitment criteria? 3. If you were Pat, would you change your approach to recruiting? Leadership Instrument Organizations use a wide variety of questionnaires to measure individuals’ traits. In many organizations, it is common practice to use standard trait measures suc h as the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory or the MyersBriggs Type Indicator. These measures provide valuable information to the indivi dual and the organization about the individual’s unique attributes for leadership and where the individual could best serve the organization. In this section, the Leadership Trait Questionnaire (LTQ) is provided as an examp le of a measure that can be used to assess your personal leadership characteristic s. The LTQ quantifies the perceptions of the individual leader and selected observ ers, such as followers or peers. It measures an individual’s traits and points the in dividual to the areas in which he or she may have special strengths or weaknesse s. By taking the LTQ, you can gain an understanding of how trait measures are used for leadership assessment. You can also assess your own leadership traits. Leadership Trait Questionnaire (LTQ) Instructions: The purpose of this questionnaire is to measure personal characteri stics of leadership. The questionnaire should be completed by the leader and five people who are familiar with the leader. Make five additional copies of this questionnaire. This questionnaire should be co mpleted by you and five people you know (e.g., roommates, coworkers, relatives, friends). Using the following scale, have each individual indicate the degree to wh ich he or she agrees or disagrees with each of the 14 statements below. Do not fo rget to complete one for yourself. ______________________________________ (leader’s name) is Key: 1 = Strongly disagree 2 = Disagree 3 = Neutral 4 = Agree 5 = Strongly agree Scoring 1. Enter the responses for Raters 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 in the appropriate col umns as shown in Example 2.1. The example provides hypothetical rating s to help explain how the questionnaire can be used. 2. For each of the 14 items, compute the average for the five raters and place that number in the “average rating” column. 3. Place your own scores in the “self-rating” column. Example 2.1 Leadership Traits Questionnaire Ratings Scoring Interpretation The scores you received on the LTQ provide information about how you see your self and how others see you as a leader. The chart allows you to see where your p erceptions are the same as those of others and where they differ. The example ratings show how the leader selfrated higher than the observers did on the characteristic articulate. On the secon d characteristic, perceptive, the leader selfrated substantially higher than others. On the selfconfident characteristic, the leader selfrated quite close to others’ ratings but lower. There are no best ratings on this qu estionnaire. The purpose of the instrument is to give you a way to assess your str engths and weaknesses and to evaluate areas where your perceptions are congru ent with those of others and where there are discrepancies. Summary The trait approach has its roots in leadership theory that suggested that certain p eople were born with special traits that made them great leaders. Because it was believed that leaders and nonleaders could be differentiated by a universal set of traits, throughout the 20th century researchers were challenged to identify the d efinitive traits of leaders. Around the mid20th century, several major studies questioned the basic premise that a unique s et of traits defined leadership. As a result, attention shifted to incorporating the i mpact of situations and of followers on leadership. Researchers began to study th e interactions between leaders and their context instead of focusing only on lead ers’ traits. More recently, there have been signs that trait research has come full c ircle, with a renewed interest in focusing directly on the critical traits of leaders. From the multitude of studies conducted through the years on personal characte ristics, it is clear that many traits contribute to leadership. Some of the important traits that are consistently identified in many of these studies are intelligence, se lfconfidence, determination, integrity, and sociability. In addition, researchers hav e found a strong relationship between leadership and the traits described by the f ivefactor personality model. Extraversion was the trait most strongly associated with leadership, followed by conscientiousness, openness, low neuroticism, and agreea bleness. Another recent line of research has focused on emotional intelligence and its relationship to leadership. This research suggests that leaders who are sensiti ve to their emotions and to the impact of their emotions on others may be leader s who are more effective. On a practical level, the trait approach is concerned with which traits leaders exh ibit and who has these traits. Organizations use personality assessment instrume nts to identify how individuals will fit within their organizations. The trait appro ach is also used for personal awareness and development because it allows mana gers to analyze their strengths and weaknesses and to gain a clearer understandi ng of how they should try to change to enhance their leadership. There are several advantages to viewing leadership from the trait approach. First , it is intuitively appealing because it fits clearly into the popular idea that leaders are special people who are out front, leading the way in society. Second, a great d eal of research validates the basis of this perspective. Third, by focusing exclusive ly on the leader, the trait approach provides an indepth understanding of the leader component in the leadership process. Last, it h as provided some benchmarks against which individuals can evaluate their own personal leadership attributes. On the negative side, the trait approach has failed to provide a definitive list of le adership traits. In analyzing the traits of leaders, the approach has failed to take i nto account the impact of situations. In addition, the approach has resulted in sub jective lists of the most important leadership traits, which are not necessarily gro unded in strong, reliable research. Furthermore, the trait approach has not adequately linked the traits of leaders wi th other outcomes such as group and team performance. 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Previous section Next section 3.1 Description Like the trait approach discussed in Chapter 2, the skills approach takes a leadercentered perspective on leadership. However, in the skills approach we shift our thinking fr om a focus on personality characteristics, which usually are viewed as innate and largely fix ed, to an emphasis on skills and abilities that can be learned and developed. Although perso nality certainly plays an integral role in leadership, the skills approach suggests that knowl edge and abilities are needed for effective leadership. Researchers have studied leadership skills directly or indirectly for a number of years (see Bass, 2008, pp. 97– 109). However, the impetus for research on skills was a classic article published by Robert Katz in the Harvard Business Review in 1955, titled “Skills of an Effective Administrator.” Ka tz’s article appeared at a time when researchers were trying to identify a definitive set of le adership traits. Katz’s approach was an attempt to transcend the trait problem by addressi ng leadership as a set of developable skills. More recently, a revitalized interest in the skills approach has emerged. Beginning in the early 1990s, a multitude of studies have been publ ished that contend that a leader’s effectiveness depends on the leader’s ability to solve com plex organizational problems. This research has resulted in a comprehensive skillbased model of leadership that was advanced by Mumford and his colleagues (Mumford, Za ccaro, Harding, Jacobs, & Fleishman, 2000; Yammarino, 2000). In this chapter, our discussion of the skills approach is divided into two parts. First, we disc uss the general ideas set forth by Katz regarding three basic administrative skills: technical, human, and conceptual. Second, we discuss the recent work of Mumford and colleagues th at has resulted in a skills-based model of organizational leadership. Three-Skill Approach Based on field research in administration and his own firsthand observations of executives in the workplace, Katz (1955, p. 34) suggested that effective administration (i.e., leadership ) depends on three basic personal skills: technical, human, and conceptual. Katz argued that these skills are quite different from traits or qualities of leaders. Skills are what leaders can accomplish, whereas traits are who leaders are (i.e., their innate characteristics). Leadershi p skills are defined in this chapter as the ability to use one’s knowledge and competencies t o accomplish a set of goals or objectives. This chapter shows that these leadership skills can be acquired and leaders can be trained to develop them. Technical Skills Technical skills are knowledge about and proficiency in a specific type of work or activity. T hey include competencies in a specialized area, analytical ability, and the ability to use appr opriate tools and techniques (Katz, 1955). For example, in a computer software company, t echnical skills might include knowing software language and programming, the company’s software products, and how to make these products function for clients. Similarly, in an acc ounting firm, technical skills might include understanding and having the ability to apply ge nerally accepted accounting principles to a client’s audit. In both these examples, technical skills involve a handson activity with a basic product or process within an organization. Technical skills play an e ssential role in producing the actual products a company is designed to produce. As illustrated in Figure 3.1, technical skills are most important at lower and middle levels of management and less important in upper management. For leaders at the highest level, suc h as CEOs, presidents, and senior officers, technical competencies are not as essential. Indiv iduals at the top level depend on skilled followers to handle technical issues of the physical operation. Human Skills Human skills are knowledge about and ability to work with people. They are quite different from technical skills, which have to do with working with things (Katz, 1955). Human skills are “people skills.” They are the abilities that help a leader to work effectively with follower s, peers, and superiors to accomplish the organization’s goals. Human skills allow a leader t o assist group members in working cooperatively as a group to achieve common goals. For Katz, it means being aware of one’s own perspective on issues and, at the same time, being aware of the perspective of others. Leaders with human skills adapt their own ideas to thos e of others. Furthermore, they create an atmosphere of trust where employees can feel com fortable and secure and where they can feel encouraged to become involved in the planning of things that will affect them. Being a leader with human skills means being sensitive to th e needs and motivations of others and taking into account others’ needs in one’s decision m aking. In short, human skills are the capacity to get along with others as you go about your work. Figure 3.1 Management Skills Necessary at Various Levels of an Organization Source: Adapted from “Skills of an Effective Administrator,” by R. L. Katz, 1955, Harvard Bu siness Review, 33(1), pp. 33–42. Figure 3.1 shows that human skills are important in all three levels of management. Althoug h managers at lower levels may communicate with a far greater number of employees, hum an skills are equally important at middle and upper levels. Conceptual Skills Broadly speaking, conceptual skills are the ability to work with ideas and concepts. Wherea s technical skills deal with things and human skills deal with people, conceptual skills involv e the ability to work with ideas. A leader with conceptual skills is comfortable talking about the ideas that shape an organization and the intricacies involved. He or she is good at puttin g the company’s goals into words and can understand and express the economic principles that affect the company. A leader with conceptual skills works easily with abstractions and hypothetical notions. Conceptual skills are central to creating a vision and strategic plan for an organization. For example, it would take conceptual skills for a CEO in a struggling manufacturing company t o articulate a vision for a line of new products that would steer the company into profitabili ty. Similarly, it would take conceptual skills for the director of a nonprofit health organizati on to create a strategic plan that could compete successfully with forprofit health organizations in a market with scarce resources. The point of these examples i s that conceptual skills have to do with the mental work of shaping the meaning of organiza tional or policy issues— understanding what a company stands for and where it is or should be going. As shown in Figure 3.1, conceptual skills are most important at the top management levels. In fact, when upperlevel managers do not have strong conceptual skills, they can jeopardize the whole organiz ation. Conceptual skills are also important in middle management; as we move down to low er management levels, conceptual skills become less important. Summary of the Three-Skill Approach To summarize, the threeskill approach includes technical, human, and conceptual skills. It is important for leaders t o have all three skills; depending on where they are in the management structure, however, some skills are more important than others are. Katz’s work in the mid1950s set the stage for conceptualizing leadership in terms of skills, but it was not until the mid1990s that an empirically based skills approach received recognition in leadership researc h. In the next section, the comprehensive skill-based model of leadership is presented. Skills Model Beginning in the early 1990s, a group of researchers, with funding from the U.S. Army and Department of Defense, set out to test and develop a comprehensive theory of leadership b ased on problemsolving skills in organizations. The studies were conducted over a number of years using a s ample of more than 1,800 Army officers, representing six grade levels, from second lieuten ant to colonel. The project used a variety of new measures and tools to assess the skills of t hese officers, their experiences, and the situations in which they worked. The researchers’ main goal was to explain the underlying elements of effective performanc e. They addressed questions such as these: What accounts for why some leaders are good p roblem solvers and others are not? What specific skills do highperforming leaders exhibit? How do leaders’ individual characteristics, career experiences, and environmental influences affect their job performance? As a whole, researchers wante d to identify the leadership factors that create exemplary job performance in an actual orga nization. Figure 3.2 Three Components of the Skills Model Source: Adapted from “Leadership Skills for a Changing World: Solving Complex Social Pro blems,” by M. D. Mumford, S. J. Zaccaro, F. D. Harding, T. O. Jacobs, and E. A. Fleishman, The Leadership Quarterly, 11(1), p. 23. Copyright 2000 by Elsevier. Adapted with permission. Based on the extensive findings from the project, Mumford and colleagues formulated a skil lbased model of leadership. The model is characterized as a capability model because it exa mines the relationship between a leader’s knowledge and skills (i.e., capabilities) and the le ader’s performance (Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, et al., 2000, p. 12). Leadership capabilities can be developed over time through education and experience. Unlike the “great man” app roach (discussed in Chapter 2 of this text), which implies that leadership is reserved for onl y the gifted few, the skills approach suggests that many people have the potential for leader ship. If people are capable of learning from their experiences, they can acquire leadership. The skills approach can also be distinguished from the leadership approaches we will discu ss in subsequent chapters, which focus on behavioral patterns of leaders (e.g., the style app roach, transformational leadership, or leader– member exchange theory). Rather than emphasizing what leaders do, the skills approach fr ames leadership as the capabilities (knowledge and skills) that make effective leadership poss ible (Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, et al., 2000, p. 12). The skillbased model of Mumford’s group has five components: competencies, individual attributes, leadership outcomes, career experiences, and environmental influences. A portion of the m odel, illustrating three of these components, appears in Figure 3.2. This portion of the mode l is essential to understanding the overall skill-based leadership model. Competencies As can be observed in the middle box of Figure 3.2, problemsolving skills, social judgment skills, and knowledge are at the heart of the skills model. The se three competencies are the key factors that account for effective performance (Mumford et al., 2012). Problem-Solving Skills. What are problemsolving skills? According to Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, et al. (2000), problemsolving skills are a leader’s creative ability to solve new and unusual, illdefined organizational problems. The skills include being able to define significant problem s, gather problem information, formulate new understandings about the problem, and gene rate prototype plans for problem solutions. Mumford, Todd, Higgs, and McIntosh (2017, p. 28) identified nine key problem-solving skills leaders employ to address problems: 1. problem definition, the ability to define noteworthy issues or significant problems aff ecting the organization; 2. cause/goal analysis, the ability to analyze the causes and goals relevant to addressin g problems; 3. constraint analysis, the ability to identify the constraints, or limiting factors, influenc ing any problem solution; 4. planning, the ability to formulate plans, mental simulations, and actions arising from cause/goal and constraint analysis; 5. forecasting, the ability to anticipate the implications of executing the plans; 6. creative thinking, the ability to develop alternative approaches and new ideas for ad dressing potential pitfalls of a plan identified in forecasting; 7. idea evaluation, the ability to evaluate these alternative approaches’ viability in exec uting the plan; 8. wisdom, the ability to evaluate the appropriateness of these alternative approaches within the context, or setting, in which the leader acts; and 9. sensemaking/visioning, the ability to articulate a vision that will help followers unde rstand, make sense of, and act on the problem. Figure 3.3 shows the relationship between these different skills as a developing process, wh ere employment of one skill can lead to the next. To clarify how these problemsolving skills work in conjunction with one another, consider the following hypothetical sit uation. Imagine that you are the director of human resources for a mediumsized company and you have been informed by the president that you have to develop a pla n to reduce the company’s health care costs. In deciding what you will do, you demonstrate problemsolving skills in the following ways. First, you identify the full ramifications for employees o f changing their health insurance coverage (problem definition; forecasting). What is the im pact going to be (cause/goal analysis)? Second, you gather information about how benefits can be scaled back (constraint analysis). What other companies have attempted a similar ch ange, and what were their results (forecasting)? Third, you find a way to teach and inform t he employees about the needed change (planning; creative thinking). How can you frame th e change in such a way that it is clearly understood (planning; creative thinking; wisdom)? Fourth, you create possible scenarios for how the changes will be instituted (forecasting; id ea evaluation). How will the plan be described? Fifth, you look closely at the solution itself ( idea evaluation). How will implementing this change affect the company’s mission and your own career (sensemaking; vision)? Last, are there issues in the organization (e.g., union rul es) that may affect the implementation of these changes (constraint analysis; forecasting)? Figure 3.3 Hypothetical Relationships Source: Reprinted from “Cognitive Skills and Leadership Performance: The Nine Critical Ski lls,” by M. D. Mumford, E. M. Todd, C. Higgs, and T. McIntosh, The Leadership Quarterly, 28( 1), p. 28. Copyright 2017 by Elsevier. Reprinted with permission. Problemsolving skills also demand that leaders understand their own leadership capacities as they apply possible solutions to the unique problems in their organization (Mumford, Zaccaro, C onnelly, & Marks, 2000). Being able to construct solutions plays a special role in problem solving. In considering solu tions to organizational problems, skilled leaders need to attend to the time frame for constr ucting and implementing a solution, short-term and longterm goals, career goals and organizational goals, and external issues, all of which could infl uence the solution (Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, et al., 2000, p. 15). The process of dealing with novel, illdefined organizational problems is complex and demanding for leaders. In many ways, it is like a puzzle to be solved. For leaders to solve such puzzles, the skillbased model suggests that problem-solving skills are essential. Social Judgment Skills. In addition to problemsolving skills, effective leadership performance requires social judgment skills (Figure 3.2). In general, social judgment skills are the capacity to understand people and social systems ( Zaccaro, Mumford, Connelly, Marks, & Gilbert, 2000, p. 46). They enable leaders to work wit h others to solve problems and to marshal support to implement change within an organiza tion. Social judgment skills are the people skills that are necessary to solve unique organiza tional problems. Conceptually, social judgment skills are similar to Katz’s (1955) early work on the role of h uman skills in management. In contrast to Katz’s work, Mumford and colleagues have delin eated social judgment skills into the following: perspective taking, social perceptiveness, be havioral flexibility, and social performance. Perspective taking means understanding the attitudes that others have toward a particular problem or solution. It is empathy applied to problem solving. Perspective taking means be ing sensitive to other people’s perspectives and goals— being able to understand their point of view on different issues. Included in perspective tak ing is knowing how different constituencies in an organization view a problem and possible solutions (Gasiorek & Ebesu Hubbard, 2017). According to Zaccaro, Gilbert, Thor, and Mum ford (1991), perspectivetaking skills can be likened to social intelligence. These skills are concerned with knowledge about people, the social fabric of organizations, and the interrelatedness of each of them. Social perceptiveness is insight and awareness into how others in the organization functio n. What is important to others? What motivates them? What problems do they face, and ho w do they react to change? Social perceptiveness means understanding the unique needs, g oals, and demands of different organizational constituencies (Zaccaro et al., 1991). A leader with social perceptiveness has a keen sense of how followers will respond to any proposed change in the organization. In a sense, you could say it allows the leader to know the pulse of followers on any issue at any time. In addition to understanding others accurately, social judgment skills involve reacting to ot hers with flexibility. Behavioral flexibility is the capacity to change and adapt one’s behavior in light of an understanding of others’ perspectives in the organization. Being flexible mean s one is not locked into a singular approach to a problem. One is not dogmatic but rather m aintains an openness and willingness to change. As the circumstances of a situation change, a flexible leader changes to meet the new demands. Social performance includes a wide range of leadership competencies. Based on an unders tanding of followers’ perspectives, leaders need to be able to communicate their own vision to others. Skill in persuasion and communicating change is essential to do this. When there is resistance to change or interpersonal conflict about change, leaders need to function as mediators. To this end, skill in conflict resolution is an important aspect of social performa nce competency. In addition, social performance sometimes requires that leaders coach foll owers, giving them direction and support as they move toward selected organizational goal s. In all, social performance includes many related skills that may come under the umbrella of communication. To review, social judgment skills are about being sensitive to how your ideas fit in with oth ers. Can you understand others’ perspectives and their unique needs and motivations? Are you flexible, and can you adapt your own ideas to others? Can you work with others even w hen there is resistance and conflict? Social judgment skills are the people skills needed to a dvance change in an organization. Knowledge. As shown in the model (Figure 3.2), the third aspect of competencies is knowledge. Knowle dge is inextricably related to the application and implementation of problemsolving skills in organizations. It directly influences a leader’s capacity to define complex or ganizational problems and to attempt to solve them (Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, et al., 200 0). Knowledge is the accumulation of information and the mental structures used to organiz e that information. Such a mental structure is called a schema (a summary, a diagrammatic representation, or an outline). Knowledge results from having developed an assortment of complex schemata for learning and organizing data. For example, all of us take various kinds of facts and information into our minds. As we org anize that information into categories or schemata, the information becomes more meanin gful. Knowledge emerges from the facts and the organizational structures we apply to them . People with a lot of knowledge have more complex organizing structures than those with l ess knowledge. These knowledgeable people are called experts. Consider the following baseball example. A baseball expert knows a lot of facts about the ga me; the expert knows the rules, strategies, equipment, players, and much, much more. The expert’s knowledge about baseball includes the facts, but it also includes the complex ment al structures used in organizing and structuring those facts. That person knows not only th e season and lifetime statistics for each player, but also that player’s quirks and injuries, the personality of the manager, the strengths and weaknesses of available substitutes, and so o n. The expert knows baseball because she or he comprehends the complexities and nuance s of the game. The same is true for leadership in organizations. Leaders with knowledge kn ow much about the products, the tasks, the people, the organization, and all the different w ays these elements are related to each other. A knowledgeable leader has many mental stru ctures with which to organize the facts of organizational life. Knowledge has a positive impact on how leaders engage in problem solving. It is knowledg e and expertise that make it possible for people to think about complex system issues and i dentify possible strategies for appropriate change. Furthermore, this capacity allows peopl e to use prior cases and incidents in order to plan for needed change. It is knowledge that al lows people to use the past to constructively confront the future. To summarize, the skills model consists of three competencies: problemsolving skills, social judgment skills, and knowledge. Collectively, these three components a re positively related to effective leadership performance (Figure 3.2). Individual Attributes Returning to Figure 3.2, the box on the left identifies four individual attributes that have an i mpact on leadership skills and knowledge: general cognitive ability, crystallized cognitive a bility, motivation, and personality. These attributes play important roles in the skills model. Complex problem solving is a very difficult process and becomes more difficult as people move up in the organization. These attributes support people as they apply their leadership competencies. General Cognitive Ability. General cognitive ability can be thought of as a person’s intelligence. It includes perceptual processing, information processing, general reasoning skills, creative and divergent thinkin g capacities, and memory skills. General cognitive ability is linked to biology, not to experie nce. General cognitive ability is sometimes described as fluid intelligence, a type of intelligence t hat usually grows and expands up through early adulthood and then declines with age. In t he skills model, intelligence is described as having a positive impact on the leader’s acquisit ion of complex problem-solving skills and the leader’s knowledge. Crystallized Cognitive Ability. Crystallized cognitive ability is intellectual ability that is learned or acquired over time. It is the store of knowledge we acquire through experience. We learn and increase our capaciti es over a lifetime, increasing our leadership potential (e.g., problemsolving skills, conceptual ability, and social judgment skills). In normally functioning adults, this type of cognitive ability grows continuously and typically does not fall off in adulthood. It includes being able to comprehend complex information and learn new skills and inform ation, as well as being able to communicate to others in oral and written forms (Connelly et al., 2000, p. 71). Stated another way, crystallized cognitive ability is acquired intelligence: t he ideas and mental abilities people learn through experience. Because it stays fairly stable over time, this type of intelligence is not diminished as people get older (Rose & Gordon, 20 15). Motivation. Motivation is listed as the third attribute in the model. While Kerns (2015) identified three categories of motivations (selfinterest, career considerations, and higher purposes) that propel leaders, the skills model t akes a different approach, instead suggesting there are three aspects of motivation— willingness, dominance, and social good— that are essential to developing leadership skills (Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, et al., 2000, p . 22). First, leaders must be willing to tackle complex organizational problems. This first step is cr itical. For leadership to occur, a person must want to lead. Second, leaders must be willing t o express dominance— to exert their influence, as we discussed in Chapter 2. In influencing others, the leader must take on the responsibility of dominance because the influence component of leadership is i nextricably bound to dominance. Third, leaders must be committed to the social good of the organization. Social good is a broad term that can refer to a host of outcomes. However, in t he skills model it refers to the leader’s willingness to take on the responsibility of trying to advance the overall human good and value of the organization. Taken together, these three aspects of motivation (willingness, dominance, and social good) prepare people to become l eaders. Personality. Personality is the fourth individual attribute in the skills model. Placed where it is in the mo del, this attribute reminds us that our personality has an impact on the development of our leadership skills. For example, openness, tolerance for ambiguity, and curiosity may affect a leader’s motivation to try to solve some organizational problems. Or, in conflict situations, traits such as confidence and adaptability may be beneficial to a leader’s performance. The skills model hypothesizes that any personality characteristic that helps people to cope with complex organizational situations probably is related to leader performance (Mumford, Za ccaro, Harding, et al., 2000). Leadership Outcomes In the righthand box in Figure 3.2, effective problem solving and performance are the outcomes of lead ership. These outcomes are strongly influenced by the leader’s competencies (i.e., problemsolving skills, social judgment skills, and knowledge). When leaders exhibit these competen cies, they increase their chances of problem solving and overall performance. Effective Problem Solving. As we discussed earlier, the skills model is a capability model, designed to explain why som e leaders are good problem solvers and others are not. Problem solving is the keystone in t he skills approach. In the model (Figure 3.2), problemsolving skills, as competencies, lead to effective problem solving as a leadership outcome. T he criteria for good problem solving are determined by the originality and the quality of ex pressed solutions to problems. Good problem solving involves creating solutions that are lo gical, effective, and unique, and that go beyond given information (Zaccaro et al., 2000). Performance. In the model, performance outcomes reflect how well the leader has done her or his job. To measure performance, standard external criteria are used. If the leader has done well and b een successful, the leader’s evaluations will be positive. Leaders who are effective receive g ood annual performance reviews, get merit raises, and are recognized by superiors and foll owers as competent leaders. In the end, performance is the degree to which a leader has su ccessfully performed the assigned duties. Taken together, effective problem solving and performance are the two ways to assess lead ership effectiveness using the skills model. Furthermore, good problem solving and good p erformance go hand in hand. A full depiction of the comprehensive skills model appears in Figure 3.4. It contains two other components, not depicted in Figure 3.2, that contribute to o verall leadership performance: career experiences and environmental influences. Career Experiences As you can see in Figure 3.4, career experiences have an impact on the characteristics and c ompetencies of leaders. The skills model suggests that the experiences acquired in the cour se of leaders’ careers influence their knowledge and skills to solve complex problems. Mum ford, Zaccaro, Harding, et al. (2000, p. 24) pointed out that leaders can be helped through c hallenging job assignments, mentoring, appropriate training, and handson experience in solving new and unusual problems. In addition, the authors think that car eer experiences can positively affect the individual characteristics of leaders. For example, certain on-the-job assignments could enhance a leader’s motivation or intellectual ability. In the first section of this chapter, we discussed Katz’s (1955) work, which notes that conce ptual skills are essential for upperlevel administrators. This is consistent with Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, et al.’s (2000) skill s model, which contends that leaders develop competencies over time. Career experience h elps leaders to improve their skills and knowledge over time. Leaders learn and develop hi gher levels of conceptual capacity if the kinds of problems they confront are progressively more complex and more long term as they ascend the organizational hierarchy (Mumford, Zaccaro, Connelly, et al., 2000). Similarly, upper-level leaders, as opposed to firstline supervisors, develop new competencies because they are required to address problem s that are more novel, that are more poorly defined, and that demand more human interacti on. As these people move through their careers, higher levels of problemsolving and social judgment skills become increasingly important (Mumford & Connelly, 19 91). So the skills and knowledge of leaders are shaped by their career experiences as they addre ss increasingly complex problems in the organization. This notion of developing leadership skills is unique and quite different from other leadership perspectives. If we say, “Leaders a re shaped by their experiences,” then it means leaders are not born to be leaders (Mumford , Zaccaro, Harding, et al., 2000). Leaders can develop their abilities through experience, acc ording to the skills model. Environmental Influences The final component of the skills model is environmental influences, which is illustrated at the bottom of Figure 3.4. Environmental influences represent factors that lie outside the lea der’s competencies, characteristics, and experiences. These environmental influences can b e internal and external. Internal environmental influences affecting leadership performance can include such factor s as technology, facilities, expertise of subordinates, and communication. For example, an a ging factory or one lacking in highspeed technology could have a major impact on the nature of problemsolving activities. Another example might be the skill levels of followers: If a leader’s follow ers are highly competent, they will definitely improve the group’s problem solving and perf ormance. Similarly, if a task is particularly complex or a group’s communication poor, the le ader’s performance will be affected. External environmental influences, including economic, political, and social issues, as well a s natural disasters, can provide unique challenges to leaders. In March 2011, a massive eart hquake and tsunami devastated large parts of Japan, crippling that nation’s automobile ma nufacturing industry. Toyota Motor Corp. alone had more than 650 of its suppliers and com ponent manufacturers wiped out, halting worldwide production of Toyota vehicles and dev astating the company’s sales. At the same time, this disaster was a boon to American carma kers, which increased shipments and began outselling Toyota, which had dominated the ma rket. Leaders of these automobile companies, both Japanese and American, had to respond to unique challenges posed by external forces completely beyond their control. Figure 3.4 Skills Model of Leadership Source: Adapted from “Leadership Skills for a Changing World: Solving Complex Social Pro blems,” by M. D. Mumford, S. J. Zaccaro, F. D. Harding, T. O. Jacobs, and E. A. Fleishman, The Leadership Quarterly, 11(1), p. 23. Copyright 2000 by Elsevier. Adapted with permission. The skills model does not provide an inventory of specific environmental influences. Instea d, it acknowledges the existence of these factors and recognizes that they are indeed influe nces that can affect a leader’s performance. In other words, environmental influences are a part of the skills model but not usually under the control of the leader. Summary of the Skills Model In summary, the skills model frames leadership by describing five components of leader pe rformance. At the heart of the model are three competencies: problemsolving skills, social judgment skills, and knowledge. These three competencies are the centra l determinants of effective problem solving and performance, although individual attribute s, career experiences, and environmental influences all have impacts on leader competenci es. Through job experience and training, leaders can become better problem solvers and m ore effective leaders. Previous section Next section 3.2 How does the Skills Approach Work? The skills approach is primarily descriptive: It describes leadership from a skills p erspective. Rather than providing prescriptions for success in leadership, the skil ls approach provides a structure for understanding the nature of effective leader ship. In the previous sections, we discussed the skills perspective based on the w ork of Katz (1955) and Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, et al. (2000). What does each of these bodies of work suggest about the structure and functions of leadership? The threeskill approach of Katz suggests that the importance of certain leadership skills va ries depending on where leaders are in a management hierarchy. For leaders ope rating at lower levels of management, technical and human skills are most impor tant. When leaders move into middle management, it becomes important that the y have all three skills: technical, human, and conceptual. At the upper manageme nt levels, it is paramount for leaders to exhibit conceptual and human skills. This approach was reinforced in a 2007 study that examined the skills needed by executives at different levels of management. The researchers used a fourskill model, similar to Katz’s approach, to assess cognitive skills, interpersonal ski lls, business skills, and strategic skills of 1,000 managers at the junior, middle, an d senior levels of an organization. The results showed that interpersonal and cog nitive skills were required more than business and strategic skills for those on th e lower levels of management. As one climbed the career ladder, however, the ex ecution of higher levels of all four of these leadership skills became necessary (M umford, Campion, & Morgeson, 2007). In their skills model, Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, et al. (2000) provided a more c omplex picture of how skills relate to the manifestation of effective leadership. T heir skills model contends that leadership outcomes are the direct result of a lead er’s competencies in problemsolving skills, social judgment skills, and knowledge. Each of these competencies i ncludes a large repertoire of abilities, and each can be learned and developed. In addition, the model illustrates how individual attributes such as general cognitiv e ability, crystallized cognitive ability, motivation, and personality influence the l eader’s competencies. And finally, the model describes how career experiences a nd environmental influences play a direct or indirect role in leadership performa nce. The skills approach works by providing a map for how to reach effective leadersh ip in an organization: Leaders need to have problemsolving skills, social judgment skills, and knowledge. Workers can improve their c apabilities in these areas through training and experience. Although each leader’s personal attributes affect his or her skills, it is the leader’s skills themselves that are most important in addressing organizational problems. 3.3 Strengths In several ways, the skills approach contributes positively to our understanding a bout leadership. First, it is a leadercentered model that stresses the importance of developing particular leadership skills. It is the first approach to conceptualize and create a structure of the proces s of leadership around skills. Whereas the early research on skills highlighted the importance of skills and the value of skills across different management levels, th e later work placed learned skills at the center of effective leadership performanc e at all management levels. Second, the skills approach is intuitively appealing. To describe leadership in ter ms of skills makes leadership available to everyone. Unlike personality traits, skil ls are competencies that people can learn or develop. It is like playing a sport suc h as tennis or golf. Even without natural ability in these sports, people can impro ve their games with practice and instruction. The same is true with leadership. W hen leadership is framed as a set of skills, it becomes a process that people can st udy and practice to become better at performing their jobs. Third, the skills approach provides an expansive view of leadership that incorpor ates a wide variety of components, including problemsolving skills, social judgment skills, knowledge, individual attributes, career exp eriences, and environmental influences. Each of these components can further be subdivided into several subcomponents. The result is a picture of leadership that encompasses a multitude of factors. Because it includes so many variables, the s kills approach can capture many of the intricacies and complexities of leadership not found in other models. Last, the skills approach provides a structure that is very consistent with the curr icula of most leadership education programs. Leadership education programs thr oughout the country have traditionally taught classes in creative problem solving , conflict resolution, listening, and teamwork, to name a few. The content of these classes closely mirrors many of the components in the skills model. Clearly, the s kills approach provides a structure that helps to frame the curricula of leadership education and development programs. 3.4 Criticisms Like all other approaches to leadership, the skills approach also has certain weak nesses. First, the breadth of the skills approach seems to extend beyond the boun daries of leadership. For example, by including motivation, critical thinking, pers onality, and conflict resolution, the skills approach addresses more than just lead ership. Another example of the model’s breadth is its inclusion of two types of int elligence (i.e., general cognitive ability and crystallized cognitive ability). Althoug h both areas are studied widely in the field of cognitive psychology, they are seld om addressed in leadership research. By including so many components, the skill s model of Mumford and others becomes more general and less precise in explain ing leadership performance. Second, related to the first criticism, the skills model is weak in predictive value. I t does not explain specifically how variations in social judgment skills and proble msolving skills affect performance. The model suggests that these components are related, but it does not describe with any precision just how that works. In short, the model can be faulted because it does not explain how skills lead to effective le adership performance. In addition, the skills approach can be criticized for claiming not to be a trait mod el when, in fact, a major component in the model includes individual attributes, w hich are traitlike. Although Mumford and colleagues describe cognitive abilities, motivation, a nd personality variables as factors contributing to competencies, these are also fa ctors that are typically considered to be trait variables. The point is that the indiv idual attributes component of the skills model is trait driven, and that shifts the model away from being strictly a skills approach to leadership. The final criticism of the skills approach is that it may not be suitably or appropri ately applied to other contexts of leadership. The skills model was constructed by using a large sample of military personnel and observing their performance in th e armed services. This raises an obvious question: Can the results be generalized to other populations or organizational settings? Although some research suggest s that these Army findings can be generalized to other groups (Mumford, Zaccaro , Connelly, et al., 2000), more research is needed to address this criticism. 3.5 Application Despite its appeal to theorists and academics, the skills approach has not been wi dely used in applied leadership settings. For example, there are no training packa ges designed specifically to teach people leadership skills from this approach. Alt hough many programs have been designed to teach leadership skills from a gene ral selfhelp orientation, few of these programs are based on the conceptual frameworks set forth in this chapter. Despite the lack of formal training programs, the skills approach offers valuable i nformation about leadership. The approach provides a way to delineate the skills of the leader, and leaders at all levels in an organization can use it. In addition, th is approach helps us to identify our strengths and weaknesses in regard to these technical, human, and conceptual skills. By taking a skills inventory such as the o ne provided at the end of this chapter, people can gain further insight into their o wn leadership competencies. Their scores allow them to learn about areas in whi ch they may want to seek further training to enhance their overall contributions t o their organization. From a wider perspective, the skills approach may be used in the future as a tem plate for the design of extensive leadership development programs. This approac h provides the evidence for teaching leaders the important aspects of listening, cr eative problem solving, conflict resolution skills, and much more. Case Studies The following three case studies (Cases 3.1, 3.2, and 3.3) describe leadership situ ations that can be analyzed and evaluated from the skills perspective. The first ca se involves the principal investigator of a federally funded research grant. The se cond case takes place in a military setting and describes how a lieutenant colonel handles the downsizing of a military base. In the third case, we learn about how t he owner of an Italian restaurant has created his own recipe for success. As you read each case, try to apply the principles of the skills approach to the lea ders and their situations. At the end of each case are questions that will assist yo u in analyzing the case. Case 3.1: A Strained Research Team Dr. Adam Wood is the principal investigator on a threeyear, $1 million federally funded research grant to study health education progra ms for older populations, called the Elder Care Project. Unlike previous projects, i n which Dr. Wood worked alone or with one or two other investigators, on this p roject Dr. Wood has 11 colleagues. His project team is made up of two co- investigators (with PhDs), four intervention staff (with MAs), and five general sta ff members (with BAs). One year into the project, it has become apparent to Dr. Wood and the team that the project is underbudgeted and has too few resources. Team members are spending 20%– 30% more time on the project than has been budgeted to pay them. Regardless of the resource strain, all team members are committed to the project; they believe in its goals and the importance of its outcomes. Dr. Wood is known throughout th e country as the foremost scholar in this area of health education research. He is often asked to serve on national review and advisory boards. His publication reco rd is second to none. In addition, his colleagues in the university know Dr. Wood as a very competent researcher. People come to Dr. Wood for advice on research design and methodology questions. They also come to him for questions about th eoretical formulations. He has a reputation as someone who can see the big pictu re on research projects. Despite his research competence, there are problems on Dr. Wood’s research tea m. Dr. Wood worries there is a great deal of work to be done but that the membe rs of the team are not devoting sufficient time to the Elder Care Project. He is frus trated because many of the day-today research tasks of the project are falling into his lap. He enters a research mee ting, throws his notebook down on the table, and says, “I wish I’d never taken thi s project on. It’s taking way too much of my time. The rest of you aren’t pulling yo ur fair share.” Team members feel exasperated at Dr. Wood’s comments. Althoug h they respect his competence, they find his leadership style frustrating. His nega tive comments at staff meetings are having a demoralizing effect on the research team. Despite their hard work and devotion to the project, Dr. Wood seldom com pliments or praises their efforts. Team members believe that they have spent mo re time than anticipated on the project and have received less pay or credit than expected. The project is sucking away a lot of staff energy, yet Dr. Wood does not seem to understand the pressures confronting his staff. The research staff is starting to feel burned out, but members realize they need t o keep trying because they are under time constraints from the federal governme nt to do the work promised. The team needs to develop a pamphlet for the partici pants in the Elder Care Project, but the pamphlet costs are significantly more tha n budgeted in the grant. Dr. Wood has been very adept at finding out where they might find small pockets of money to help cover those costs. Although team members are pleased that he is able to obtain the money, they are sure he will use this as just another example of how he was the one doing most o f the work on the project. Questions 1. Based on the skills approach, how would you assess Dr. Wood’s lead ership and his relationship to the members of the Elder Care Project team? Will the project be successful? 2. Does Dr. Wood have the skills necessary to be an effective leader of t his research team? 3. The skills model describes three important competencies for leaders : problemsolving skills, social judgment skills, and knowledge. If you were to coach D r. Wood using this model, what competencies would you address with him? What changes would you suggest that he make in his leadership? Case 3.2: A Shift for Lieutenant Colonel Adams Lt. Col. John Adams was an aeronautical engineer in the Air Force who was recog nized as an accomplished officer; he rose quickly through the ranks of lieutenant, captain, and major. In addition, he successfully completed a number of professio nal development courses in the Air Force and received a master’s degree in engin eering. In the earlier part of his service, his career assignments required overseei ng 15- to 20person shifts that were responsible for routine maintenance schedules for squad ron and base aircraft. As he progressed in rank, he moved to engineering projects , which were supported by small technical staffs. Based on his strong performance, Major Adams was promoted to lieutenant colo nel earlier than his peers. Instead of moving him into another engineering positio n, the personnel bureau and his assignment officer decided that Lieutenant Colon el Adams would benefit from a tour in which he could expand his professional ba ckground and experience. Consequently, he was assigned to Base X as the comma nding officer of the administration branch. Base X was an airbase with approxima tely 5,000 military and civilian personnel. As the administration officer, Adams was the senior human resource officer and t he principal adviser to the base commander on all human resource issues. Adams and his staff of 135 civilian and military personnel were responsible for personn el issues, food services, recreation, family support, and medical services. In additi on, Lieutenant Colonel Adams was assigned to chair the Labor– Management Relations Committee for the base. At the end of the Cold War, as part of the declared peace dividend, the governme nt decided to reduce its defense budget. In February, barely six months after Ada ms took over command of the administration branch, the federal government an nounced a significant reduction in the size of the military and the closure of many bases. Base X was to be closed as an air base and reassigned to the Army. The clo sure was to take place within one year, and the base was to be prepared for the a rrival of the first Army troops in two years. As part of the reduction program, the federal government initiated voluntary retirement programs for civilian and mili tary personnel. Those wanting to retire had until April 1 to decide. Orders for the conversion of the airbase included the following: • The base will continue normal operations for six months. The squadrons— complete with aircrews, equipment, and families (1,000)— must be relocated to their new bases and operational by August 1. • The remaining base personnel strength, both civilian and military, m ust be reduced by 30%. • • ns. The base must continue to provide personnel for operational missio The reduction of personnel must be consistent with federal voluntar y early-retirement programs. • The base must be prepared with a support structure to accept 2,000 new soldiers, expected to arrive in two years. • Adams was assigned to develop a human resource plan that would meet the imp osed staff levels for the entire base while ensuring that the base was still able to p erform the operational tasks it had been given. Faced with this daunting task, Ad ams conducted an extensive review of all of the relevant orders concerning the b ase transformation, and he familiarized himself with all of the rules concerning th e earlyretirement program. After a series of initial meetings with the other base branch chiefs, he laid out a plan that could be accomplished by the established deadlines. At the same time, he chaired a number of meetings with his own staff about how to meet the mandated reductions within his own branch. After considering the target figures for the earlyretirement program, it was clear that the mandated numbers could not be reache d. Simply allowing everyone who had applied for early retirement to leave was n ot considered an option because doing so would devastate entire sections of the base. More job cuts were required, and choices had to be made as to who would s tay, why, and in what areas. Adams met stiff resistance in the meetings to determ ine what sections would bear the brunt of the additional cutbacks. Adams conducted his own independent analysis of his own branch before consult ing with his staff. Based on his thorough examination of the data, he mandated fu rther reductions in his sections. Specifically targeted were personnel in base hou sing, singleperson accommodations, family services, and recreational sections. He also mand ated a further 10% cut of military positions in his sections. After meeting the mandated reduction targets, Lieutenant Colonel Adams was inf ormed that the federal government would accept all personnel who applied for e arly retirement, which was an unexpected decision. When superimposed on the a lready mandated reductions, this move caused critical shortages in key areas. Wit hin weeks of implementation of the plan, the base commander was receiving mo unting complaints from both civilian and military members over the implementat ion of the plan. Incidents of stress, frustration, and discontent rose dramatically. Families trying t o move found support services cut back or nonexistent. Members of the transitio n staff were forced to work evenings and weekends. Family support services wer e swamped and asking for additional help. Despite spending a large amount of overtime trying to address the diverse issues both basewide and within his branch, Adams found himself struggling to keep his head abo ve water. To make matters worse, the base was having difficulty meeting its oper ational mission, and vital sections were critically understaffed. The base comman der wanted answers. When pressed, Adams stated that his plan met all of the req uired deadlines and targets, and the plan conformed to all of the guidelines of the earlyretirement programs. “Maybe so,” replied the base commander, “but you forgot a bout the bigger picture.” Questions 1. Based on the skills model, how would you assess Lt. Col. John Adams ’s ability to meet the challenges of the base administration position? 2. How would you assess his ability to meet the additional tasks he face d regarding the conversion of the base? 3. If you were to coach Adams on how he could improve his leadership, what would you tell him? Case 3.3: Andy’s Recipe Andy Garafallo owns an Italian restaurant that sits in the middle of a cornfield ne ar a large Midwestern city. On the restaurant’s far wall is an elaborate mural of th e canals of Venice. A gondola hangs on the opposite wall, up by the ceiling. Along another wall is a row of real potted lemon trees. “My ancestors are from Sicily,” s ays Andy. “In fact, I can remember seeing my grandfather take a bite out of a lem on, just like the ones hanging on those trees.” Andy is very confident about his approach to this restaurant, and he should be, b ecause the restaurant is celebrating its 25th anniversary. “I’m darned sure of wha t I want to do. I’m not trying different fads to get people to come here. People co me here because they know they will get great food. They also want to support so meone with whom they can connect. This is my approach. Nothing more, nothing less.” Although other restaurants have folded, Andy seems to have found a recipe for success. Since opening his restaurant, Andy has had a number of managers. Currently, he has three: Kelly, Danielle, and Patrick. Kelly is a kitchen (food prep) manager who is known as very honest and dependable. She loves her work, and is efficient, go od with ordering, and good with preparation. Andy really likes Kelly but is frustr ated with her because she has such difficulty getting along with the salespeople, delivery people, and waitstaff. Danielle, who works out front in the restaurant, has been with Andy the longest, six years. Danielle likes working at Garafallo’s— she lives and breathes the place. She fully buys into Andy’s approach of putting c ustomers first. In fact, Andy says she has a knack for knowing what customers ne ed even before they ask. Although she is very hospitable, Andy says she is lousy with numbers. She just doesn’t seem to catch on to that side of the business. Patrick, who has been with Andy for four years, usually works out front but can work in the kitchen as well. Although Patrick has a strong work ethic and is great with numbers, he is weak on the people side. For some reason, Patrick treats cust omers as if they are faceless, coming across as very unemotional. In addition, Pat rick tends to approach problems with an either– or perspective. This has gotten him into trouble on more than one occasion. Andy wishes that Patrick would learn to lighten up. “He’s a good manager, but he need s to recognize that some things just aren’t that important,” says Andy. Andy’s approach to his managers is that of a teacher and coach. He is always tryi ng to help them improve. He sees part of his responsibility as teaching them ever y aspect of the restaurant business. Andy’s stated goal is that he wants his manag ers to be “A” players when they leave his business to take on jobs elsewhere. Hel ping people to become the best they can be is Andy’s goal for his restaurant empl oyees. Although Andy works 12 hours a day, he spends little time analyzing the number s. He does not think about ways to improve his profit margin by cutting corners, r aising an item price here, or cutting quality there. Andy says, “It’s like this: The ot her night I got a call from someone who said they wanted to come in with a group and wondered if they could bring along a cake. I said ‘yes’ with one stipulation. . . . I get a piece! Well, the people came and spent a lot of money. Then they told me that they had actually wanted to go to another restaurant, but the other place wo uld not allow them to bring in their own cake.” Andy believes very strongly in his approach. “You get business by being what you should be.” Compared with other restaurants, his restaurant is doing quite well. Although many places are happy t o net 5%– 7% profit, Andy’s Italian restaurant nets 30% profit, year in and year out. Questions 1. What accounts for Andy’s success in the restaurant business? 2. From a skills perspective, how would you describe the three manage rs, Kelly, Danielle, and Patrick? What does each of them need to do to impro ve his or her skills? 3. How would you describe Andy’s competencies? Does Andy’s leaders hip suggest that one does not need all three skills in order to be effective? Leadership Instrument Many questionnaires assess an individual’s skills for leadership. A quick search of the Internet provides a host of these questionnaires. Almost all of them are desig ned to be used in training and development to give people a feel for their leaders hip abilities. Surveys have been used for years to help people understand and im prove their leadership style, but most questionnaires are not used in research be cause they have not been tested for reliability and validity. Nevertheless, they are useful as self- help instruments because they provide specific information to people about their leadership skills. In this chapter, we present a comprehensive skills model that is based on many e mpirical studies of leaders’ skills. Although the questionnaires used in these studi es are highly...
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