In learning about the three-skill approach I began to reflect on my own career. Over the last twenty years I have gone from managing a team of student staff to now managing over 40 full time professional employees working in a variety of functionalities. The three-skill approach has been directly reflected in my own career growth as I transition to new phases.
Per Northouse (2015), the three-skill approach “includes technical, human, and conceptual skills.” The idea that as your role evolves and grows the mix of the skills necessary change particularly in the areas of technical and conceptual. “It is important for leaders to have all three skills; dpeending on where they are in the management structure, however, some skills are more important than others are.” (Northouse, 2015, p. 46)
To be clear, technical skill can be equated to functional expertise in a given field or task, human skill is the ability to relate to others, and conceptual skills is working with ideas and loosely formed concepts. (Northouse, 2015, pp. 44-45)
For myself, I see this evolution mirrored in my last 3 roles.
First, at the University of Michigan I was a functional expert with a very specialized skill set. I managed a large number of students and two professional staff. My work was based on a yearly calendar and it involved very little program creation or vision work. In this role, as a functional expert my skills were very high in the technical realm and as I managed more than 200 student employees I exercised my skills in the human realm regularly. Due to the annual focus of the work I practiced very little my conceptual skills.
Next, at my role in Penn State I was once again a functional expert. This time I worked with a team of 20 professional staff all of whom were working from the same knowledge perspective as was my expertise. Part of my role was to mentor this staff and grow their knowledge based on my own experiences. Additionally, as part of this role I was tasked with creating system-wide changes in my area of expertise. My skills were high in the technical area of the work, high in the human skill of interaction and, finally, I was beginning to conceptualize new ideas and exercise that skill set.
Lastly, in my current role at UC Santa Cruz, I am no longer the functional expert in any of the areas my team works. I lead a team of 40 professional staff who all have a higher level of functional expertise than I do in their work. My technical skill set is low in comparison to both where it has been in my past roles and compared to my current staff. Once again, because I am managing a significant sized staff my human skill set is well utilized. Where I have seen the most personal growth and stretching of skills is the realm of conceptual tasks. In this current role it is my duty to develop the vision for the future in partnership with my staff that we all agree to. It is my duty to work with them to develop and secure the resources and discover whats next.
Over time I have experienced the loss of the technical strength of my earlier roles but have seen a dramatic growth in my conceptual skills as my role has grown and evolved. In exploring this three-skill approach it has helped me to reflect on how I moved through these different phases of my career and to see that I have mirrored the dynamic established by this framework.
hwh10 says
Thanks for the comment.
Yes, learning the conceptual skills is still challenging. In part with the human and technical the work is there for you. You build the relationships. You accomplish the tasks. With the conceptual skills it is an on-going effort to create a shared vision and make up the work that implements that vision. It is so hard to hold yourself accountable when you are in charge of developing the work itself.
hwh10 says
Thanks for your comment. To be honest with you there was not intention and it wasn’t until reading about the different skill sets that I began to reflect on how my roles evolved my skills. By the nature of leading a group that has seven different functionalities it is nearly impossible to exercise high levels of technical expertise when on one end of the spectrum my staff is working on creating event experiences to the other end managing all of the technical aspects of our division.
I think my lack of conceptual skill development was more about inexperience than about desire or thought process. In reflection there may have been a better chance for me to utilize my conceptual skills. However, I ended up being incredibly tasked focused and technically competent.
sam6428 says
You write very well and I enjoyed your post. It sounds like you have well rounded abilities within a company realm of leadership. It appears that you have had the luxury of expanding your skills as a leader in several areas after starting out in the technical realm. You explained clearly about how your experiences represent the three-skill approach, but I am curious as to which area you felt most comfortable or enjoyed the most.
You said, I have experienced the loss of the technical strength of my earlier roles but have seen a dramatic growth in my conceptual skills as my role has grown and evolved.” Was this a goal that you hoped to achieve or did it occur due to natural process?
According to Northouse, “conceptual skills are the ability to work with ideas and concepts” (2016, p. 44). You say that you practiced very little in the way of conceptual skills. I am wondering if it was due entirely due to the content of the work or if it was just not something you interested in doing at the time. Would you have been able to use conceptual skills more or was that just not an option?
Jaime Lynn Rodriguez says
Wow, you have had quite the experiences of having to utilize different skill sets. I think in order to be well rounded, we need to be emerged into positions that demand different aspects from us. Did you find any of the three aspects easier than the others? Was any aspect more of a struggle to surface? I found that my conceptual side, or as they call it in the work world “thinking outside of the box”, is sometimes difficult for me. It does not come to me as easy as it does other. I guess I am just not that inventive, sigh. Do you feel like being exposed to all 3 skill sets makes you a more successful or effective leader at all? And with that being said, do you think that you were born a leader, or made one?