Three-Skill Approach
Skills and traits are different from one another. Skills define what a leader can accomplish, while traits reflect on who a person is. To be a good leader, you need basic personal skills that can help you thrive. It is called the Three- Skill Approach. “Leadership skills are defined in this chapter as the ability to use one’s knowledge and competencies to accomplish a set of goals or objectives” (Northouse, 2016, p. 44). As someone who sees these skills everyday, and has followed my husband’s career, I have decided to compare the three skill approach and him as a worker.
To begin, “technical skill is knowledge about and proficiency in a specific type of work or activity. It includes competencies in a specialized area, analytical ability, and the ability to use appropriate tools and techniques” (Northouse, 2016, p. 44). As my husband gets into his career as an electrician, he goes and works hands on at certain organizations. He works with a journeymen that has completed all his state licenses to be able to work, and he gets training on how to do everything. As time went by, eventually he did not need a journeymen by his side. He went through the hands-on training, reading books, and asking questions to be able to learn and understand the job better.
“Human skill is knowledge about and ability to work with people” (Northouse, 2016, p. 44) My husband went on to learn how to work with people. As time went on, he had to work side by side with other electricians, and how to communicate with them. He went on to become higher up, and start working jobs on his own on the side. Having a journeymen by his side at the beginning taught him how to work effectively with his peers, superiors, and eventually customers of his own. With working with his peers, they all had a certain goal: to get electricity into the organization as safely and efficiently as possible. From working side by side, he was able to eventually form his own ideas, and create an atmosphere where his future followers would feel safe, and prioritized.
Lastly, “conceptual skills are the ability to work with ideas and concepts” (Northouse, 2016, p. 44). Eventually, my husband has been put in charge of a few electricians. During his management time, he was able to express his ideas. For example, when he had to explain how a layout lights in a room. He was able to create a vision, and get his team to follow him. He had a goal, was able to put into words, and on paper that his team understood. Conceptual skills have to do more with the mental side of shaping an organization.
Below is a picture of how technical, conceptual, and human skills categorize by management levels. As you can see, human skills fall in with every management level. Every leader needs people’s skills. Technical skills fall into middle/lower managers, while conceptual skills fall into middle/senior managers. It is important for all leaders to have all these skills. In my husband’s case, all three of these skills have gotten him to where he is today in his career.
REFERENCES
Northouse, P.G. (2016). Skills approach In Leadership: theory and practice (7th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.
Skills of an Effective Administrator, 2012, EMBA. Picture retrieved at https://embacsustanerodrigues.wordpress.com/2012/09/02/skills-of-an-effective-administrator/
Daysi Luther says
It’s interesting to read about how your husband was able to develop his skills over time to eventually work in a management capacity. Traits and skills play a significantly different role, but I do believe they do hand-in-hand when making effective leaders. In the case of your husband, it seemed that his traits helped him to develop the skills he needed. Like Stogdill’s identified traits associated with leadership, I think your husband demonstrated characteristics such as “drive for responsibility and task completion” when he began his training, “drive to exercise initiative in social situations” when he needed to utilize his human skills to work with his colleagues, supervisors, and clients (Northouse, 2015, Pg. 20). I do believe that his traits went alongside his skill development to help him in his career.
Out of the several skills approach models that we’ve learned about, I do prefer Katz’s Three Skills Model because it considered the possibility that the requirement for each skill changed depending on the leader’s position within the organization. The idea that lower-level leaders need more technical skills and higher-level leaders need more conceptual skills made sense to me since it’s what I’ve noticed in most of my work environments (PSU WC, 2016, L.4).
Another great point regarding Katz’s Three skill model is how human skills fall in line with every management style, as you mentioned in your post (anm5670, 2020). Human Skills, the ability to work with people, is what helps leaders work effectively with followers, peers, and superiors to accomplish the organization’s goals (Northouse, 2015, pg. 44). Getting along with people who you need to work with is imperative at all levels because tensions in the work environment can lead to leaders and followers to disregard the goal of the organization. I’ve worked for leaders with no human skills, who were promoted purely for their technical skills, and they often were not great leaders because they treated everyone on the team as mere tools. Our concerns were not important to that person and we eventually lost faith in that leader and eventually the organization as a whole. That’s why I agree with Katz that human skills is needed at all levels and that no matter what level a person finds themselves within their organization, they cannot disregard the need to continuously develop their human skills.
It was great to read about how your husband developed his skills throughout his career as an electrician. Reading about his development from his training period all the way to his management position tied well with the three-skill approach. Great work!
References:
anm5670. (2020, June 3). Three-Skill Approach. Retrieved June 4, 2020, from Penn State Leadership blog: https://sites.psu.edu/leadership/2020/06/03/three-skill-approach-2/
Northouse, P. G. (2015). Leadership: Theory and Practice 8th Edition. Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publishing. Retrieved June 4, 2020
Pennsylvania State University World Campus. (2016). PSYCH 485 Lesson 4: Skills Approach. Retrieved June 4, 2020, from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/canvas/su20/2205min-5439/content/05_lesson/printlesson.html