Video Transcript: What is the Skills Approach to Leadership?

let's take a look at the skills approach to leadership. The skills approach is a leader centered perspective that emphasizes the competencies of leaders. It's best represented in the early work of Katz and the three skill approach and the more recent work of Mumford and his colleagues, who initiated the development of a comprehensive skills model of leadership in the three skill approach, effective leadership depends on three personal skills, technical, human and conceptual. The leader competencies at the heart of the model are problem solving skills, social judgment skills and knowledge. These competencies are directly affected by the leader's individual attributes, which include the leader's general cognitive ability, crystallized cognitive ability, motivation and personality. Strengths include it's a leader centered model available to everybody. It maps to effective leadership performance and provides a structure for leadership education. Weaknesses include that the model extends beyond the boundaries of leadership. It's weak in predictive value. Individual traits do play a large role, and it's constructed using data from military personnel. Until the model has been tested with other populations, such as small and large organization and businesses, its basic tenets still must be questioned.