Introduction
The situation described in this prompt occurred roughly three years ago with a friend of mine, who studied in a university of Architecture and Engineering. During summer practice, he and his fellow students attended a geodesy class. For the group project, the professor told the students to divide themselves into groups of four and elected four of them to serve as leaders for every respective group. These leaders, called “brigadiers” for every student brigade, were to assume responsibility for the group, coordinate group efforts, and do everything in their power to ensure the success of their group project. My friend was elected to be a leader of one such group. In this paper, we are going to analyze the reasons why the professor elected him to be a brigadier, through the prism of Three-Skill Leadership approach.
The Three-Skills Leadership Approach
The Three-Skill Leadership approach was first conceptualized by Robert Katz in 1955 and outlined in his article titled “Skills of an Effective Administrator,” published in Harvard Business Review in the following year. This approach was later expanded on by M.D Mumford in his article titled “Leadership Skills for a Changing World: Solving Complex Problems” (Mumford, 2000). This approach identifies three essential skills that a leader must possess in order to be effective – technical skills in the field required for performing the task and grading performance of the subordinates, human skills necessary for facilitating communication and leadership, and conceptual skills necessary for setting greater vision and goals for the future (Northouse, 2016).
Implementation in Practice
While it is unlikely that the university professor knew of this model or consciously implemented in when making decisions about appointing brigadiers for the student groups, his approach mirrored at least two of three tenets of the Three-skill leadership approach. All four leaders, including my friend, were picked among the better students in the class. At the same time, it must be noted that the students with the highest scores were largely denied leadership positions on the grounds of them having poor people’s skills – the majority of high-scoring students in the class were antisocial and reclusive in nature. Their work was always excellent, but they did not know how to reach out to other students.
All four leaders possessed a modicum of social competence and had a good reputation among their peers. Thus, it is possible to see that the professor accounted for two out of three skills mentioned in the Skill Leadership Approach. The third part about conceptual skills was largely neglected. However, in his work, Mumford (2016) did state that conceptual skills were the prerogative of high-end managers and leaders and were largely unnecessary for hands-on leaders, who required stronger technical skills in their duties. My friend, however, demonstrated a firm use of conceptual skills when he assembled his group. He purposefully neglected personal attachments and friendships. Instead, he picked the most competent members to join his team. In so doing, he ensured efficiency, as every member of the group actively contributed to the project, and nobody acted as dead weight. His technical skills were enough to understand the goals of the project, explain it to other members of the team, and outline a course of action, while his people skills ensured unit cohesion.
Conclusions
The situation presented above demonstrates the implementation of the Three-skill approach by the university professor in appointing leaders for the student groups, and the successful results of such an approach. While there are many potential theories that leaders can rely on, the Three-skills approach is, perhaps, the most intuitive one, as it can be subconsciously implemented by people who do not explicitly study leadership theories in their practice. While the Three-skills approach bears a resemblance to several other theories and does not offer explanations for how and why said skills affect leadership, it is still an effective practical tool that can be used without much or any theoretical preparation.
References
Mumford, M.D. (2000). Leadership skills for a changing world: Solving complex social problems. The Leadership Quarterly, 11(1), 11-35.
Northouse, P.G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice. (7th ed.). New York, NY: Sage Publications.