The fourth lesson brings up an interesting topic in leadership but also in the workplace. When I was in education and completing my coursework, there was a research topic that was being compiled and argued over: skills vs. knowledge. Even in our department meetings, the flexibility of the standards at the school where I was teaching allowed for both of these strategies to be effectively carried out. As a new teacher and being tasked with teaching high school United States History, in which I tried to strike a balance between the two avenues. For example, was it worth the time to delve into the nuances and intricacies between drafted letters that were being circulated amongst military officers during the American Civil War versus spending time on drafting argumentative essays using historical background and scope? The issue was that there was no perfect answer and this was frustrating, as you could imagine.
While I thoroughly enjoyed teaching, I switched careers to turfgrass management, and initially, like it was mentioned in the Lesson 4 Commentary and in Katz’s three skills model, technical skills and human skills were the first skills that I began to learn in order to start becoming a leader in a new field. I restarted at the very beginning and began learning the basics. Eventually, being able to complete smaller tasks, I was able to prove some competency and began working on new projects. But whether it is properly fertilizing an existing tee box or rebuilding a sand bunker on the golf course, technical skills need to be not only learned but practiced routinely.
I think that the skills model does an excellent job in advancing Katz’s approach into the twenty-first century. The Skills Model (Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, Jacobs, & Fleishman, 200; Yammirino, 200) does a great job of combining some of the trait approach with the skills approach. I agree that most leaders share certain qualities and traits but if the leader is not competent in their field, the traits are all for not. Just as is leadership was entirely based upon competency, it would fail if the there were not positive leadership traits as well. But of the three major components, the most significant that I have witnessed in person is “Competnecies.”
In my experience, competency builds a sense of trust. For example, if you are working closely with a group of two other people and everyone is relatively new to the job, there is little trust in the skills of the fellow team members to properly complete a task. However, if there is a group of three people and one person has years of experience completing a certain project that the group has been tasked to complete, there is a sense of trust that is built by that competency. Similarly, competency opens the door for problem-solving skills, social judgment skills, sharing of knowledge, and enabling effective problem solving.
When Dr. Williams commented and said that competencies can be compared to, “the house frame and outer covering,” he was correct. Without competency, which has to be learned, developed, and practiced, we do not have the foundation to be an effective leader.
Has anyone else been or is currently in a situation where they are learning competencies from the very beginning in a given field?
-Tony
References:
Williams, Jason. Pennsylvania State University. (2018). Skill approach. Lesson 4 Commentary. PSYCH 485.
Northouse, Peter. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.