Last week I was working with all levels of management in my organization at a large production company and thought about the skills approach for each of the leaders and if they had fallen into where they should for their level. Where I work there are 190 supervisory management, 80 middle management and 2 top management in my organization. Technically there is a Vice President above my director and the roles above him to get to the top. When dealing with all of these individuals there are many different personalities and opinions that are associated to them and how they feel things should be done. Taking into account the Management Skills Necessary at Various Levels of an Organization (Figure 1) helped me understand where they stood and if they were on par with their position or slightly off.
Figure 1
The top manager in my organization is the director and his cohort, one level below him but essentially the same job. They are both very technical as Northouse puts it, “technical skill is knowledge about and proficiency in a specific type of work or activity (p. 44)”. This is because they started on the shop floor in their younger years turning a wrench with the mechanical technicians and quality technicians. There have been no changes to the build plan for the most part so when it comes to details about the small things that they should not be involved in they get stuck in the weeds so to speak because they know it all too well. For the most part they are good with their human skill, which is defined as “knowledge about and ability work with people (Northouse, p. 44)”. The human skill at times gets tricky for them though as there are close to 3500 teammates on the floor, makes it difficult to discuss and listen to every one of them. That is where I come in play and am a sounding board to flow improvement ideas up to leadership. Even though I am the gateway to get to talk to the top management it does not always work out that way and people get discouraged. As for the conceptual skill, “the ability to work with ideas and concepts (Northouse, p. 46)”, they are very good at that piece as well. According to the Skills needed in figure 1, the top management should be less technical and bump up their human skill to fall into the three skill level approach.
Middle management is all over the place with the three skill level approach where I work. A handful of them are good at technical, human and conceptual but most of them are not. It is hard to determine which is good at what so for the purpose of figuring it out, I would imagine an excel spreadsheet with all their names and their abilities checked on a scale of 1 to 10 would help determine who was best at what. Some of the middle management did not come from the company within; they were hired from outside the company. For the most part individuals will be successful even if they are hired from outside the company but during the time most of these folks were hired we were in high concentration mode to finish our first product so training and time to learn the job were not options. They were thrown into the mix and expected to be successful in all aspects. This is evident when observing where they fit in the skills approach. Most either lack the technical or human skill required to fall into the middle management bracket of figure 1. For those who lack the human skill, it is hard to determine whether or not they can be taught that skill. I do not think they are hopeless but I do think pulling them out of a high human interaction role until it gets finessed would be a good idea.
Supervisory management is high in technical and human but low in conceptual. This makes sense because they should be focused on the technical aspects of the business, are they meeting their demand, is their team doing what they are supposed to do and are they performing as they stated they would that morning. The human aspect is also important; this is the first manager a teammate talks to if they have a technical issue or teammate issue. Having the people skill is most important in this role, I believe. The conceptual piece of the skills matrix is beginning to develop in this role but is not strong yet. The managers should be paying most attention to the technical and human aspects and working on the conceptual when they have free time. There are more supervisory management where I work that are very good with technical and human and low on conceptual which is where they need to be but there are always a few that struggle with the human aspect and have coaches to help them with it.
Overall the skills approach is interesting to plug into a place of employment, just to see where people fit. After thinking about it, our business is nowhere near exact with it and we have work to do. Of course no company is flawless with their management so it is expected for some to not line up with figure 1. I wonder if there are any companies out there that do fall into the skills approach exactly and how successful they are. I imagine pretty successful especially if they all have the human aspect down.
Reference:
Northouse, P.G. (2013). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.
Christopher Matthew Boyne says
I think you did a great job of analyzing your workplace using the skills approach to leadership. You specifically examine the leadership in your company using the Three Skills Model, which focuses on technical, human, and conceptual skill. I thought it would be interesting to apply a more recent version of the skills approach model to your application. This would analyze if any of the concepts of either model overlap or are similar.
Individual attributes, competencies, and leadership outcomes are the three major components of recent versions of the skills approach. Individual attributes are inborn characteristics that include motivation, personality, and intelligence (PSU WC Lesson 4, 2014, p. 5). Since these are based off of inborn traits, I do not think that relate to any aspect of the Three Skills Model.
Competencies are the “…actual skills a leader learns to be successful” (PSU WC Lesson 4, 2014, p. 5). I think these relate closely to technical and human skills because they are learned. Middle management and supervisory management would need a good deal of competencies to be successful, being that human and technical skills are the main focus for these areas of management. Problem solving skills would also be closely related to human skills. These are skills that involve solving new problems (PSU WC Lesson 4, 2014, p. 5). Middle management and supervisory management would need to have problem solving skills in order to be successful. Social judgment skills also are a form of human skill, but in a more distinct format. Having empathy and reading social cues are important to this skill set (PSU WC Lesson 4, 2014, p. 5).
Applying recent updates of the skills approach to the Three Skills Model shows that there are many skills that are similar. For instance, middle management and supervisory management need human and technical skills. These are closely related to competencies, problem solving, and social judgment skills. Would you agree that these two models of the skills approach have similarities that can be applied to each other?
References
Pennsylvania State University World Campus. (2014). PSYCH 485 lesson 4: Skills approach. Retrieved from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/sp14/psych485/001/content/04_lesson/01_page.html
Jason Perrin says
When I first read about the skills approach, the first thing that came to mind was how much it actually mimicked my workplace. I work at an aircraft maintenance unit in the Air Force. And as soon as one reaches a certain level (one with some amounts of leadership), the skills approach really comes into view…especially in regards to the figure you posted. At the first line supervisor level, you are expected to be a technical expert. Your job consists of training subordinates, fixing, aircraft, and further your own skills and a technician and a leader. This includes the human factor as you are to know the wellbeing of your subordinate and are expected to tell when things are wrong and be able to communicate those thoughts up and down the chain as needed. As you progress further in the ranks, you are expected to know more of the bigger picture. It is no longer how to do your job, but how your job influences everyone else and the mission as a whole. That is where most people end their Air Force aviation maintenance career. However, a few progress to the highest levels of maintenance and are expected to fully embrace the conceptual level of operation and almost entirely abandon their technical skill. Many of my bosses have not even worked on the aircraft that we are assigned, but they still are at their level because of their understanding of the big picture and their managerial skills. Therefore, to answer your question, other organizations do fall in line with the skills approach. And I have been doing it for over 10 years (and it has been this way for decades before me), so I would like to call it successful!