MGT506 The Three Skill Approach Backround: The Three-Skill Approach Katz’ work yielded what is referred to as the three-skill approach to leadership. Thi

MGT506 The Three Skill Approach Backround:

The Three-Skill Approach

Katz’ work yielded what is referred to as the three-skill approach to leadership. This approach focuses on three specific types of skills that are needed by leaders at different levels. Those three types include: technical skills, human skills, and conceptual skills.

Beyond those three categories, Katz classified three levels of leadership, including top management, middle management, and supervisory management. The key to the three-skill approach is that each leadership level requires a certain mix of the three types of skills.

The chart below shows the correct “mix” for each level of leader, based on the Katz model.

As the chart clearly shows, few conceptual skills are needed from a middle manager than from a top manager, and fewer still are needed from supervisory managers. On the human side, all three levels require a highly-skilled leader. On the technical side, top managers need the least. Middle and supervisory managers, on the other hand, need the most.

(see attachment for chart)

Assignment Overview

For this case assignment, you will fully discuss the three-skill approach to leadership, using credible sources to back your work.

Case Assignment

Perform research and describe a team or organization that utilizes the three-skills approach to leadership.
Synthesize the skill mixes exhibited at each level of your example team with the model’s suggestion for the skill mix. How does your example differ?
What can/should be done to change it?

Assignment Expectations

Write a 4- to 5-page paper (not counting the title page or reference section) covering all these topics, using proper APA formatting, source selection, and citation.

1 resource that must be used:

Katz, R. L. (1955). Skills of an effective administrator. Harvard Business Review, 33(1), 33-42. ( see attached)

Additional resources must be used to complete this assignment Backround:
The Three-Skill Approach
Katz’ work yielded what is referred to as the three-skill approach to leadership. This approach focuses
on three specific types of skills that are needed by leaders at different levels. Those three types
include: technical skills, human skills, and conceptual skills.
Beyond those three categories, Katz classified three levels of leadership, including top management,
middle management, and supervisory management. The key to the three-skill approach is that each
leadership level requires a certain mix of the three types of skills.
The chart below shows the correct “mix” for each level of leader, based on the Katz model.
As the chart clearly shows, few conceptual skills are needed from a middle manager than from a top
manager, and fewer still are needed from supervisory managers. On the human side, all three levels
require a highly-skilled leader. On the technical side, top managers need the least. Middle and
supervisory managers, on the other hand, need the most.
Assignment Overview
For this case assignment, you will fully discuss the three-skill approach to leadership, using credible
sources to back your work.
Case Assignment
1. Perform research and describe a team or organization that utilizes the three-skills approach to
leadership.
2. Synthesize the skill mixes exhibited at each level of your example team with the model’s
suggestion for the skill mix. How does your example differ?
3. What can/should be done to change it?
Assignment Expectations
Write a 4- to 5-page paper (not counting the title page or reference section) covering all these topics,
using proper APA formatting, source selection, and citation.
1 resource that must be used:
Katz, R. L. (1955). Skills of an effective administrator. Harvard Business Review, 33(1), 33-42. ( see
attached)
Additional resources must be used to complete this assignment
LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
Skills of an Effective Administrator
•
Robert L. Katz
RECOMMENDED
Although the selection and training of good administrators is widely recognized as one of
American industry’s most pressing problems, there is surprisingly little agreement among
executives or educators on what makes a good administrator. The executive development
programs of some of the nation’s leading corporations and colleges reflect a tremendous
variation in objectives.
At the root of this difference is industry’s search for the traits or attributes which will
objectively identify the “ideal executive” who is equipped to cope effectively with any
problem in any organization. As one observer of U.S. industry recently noted:
“The assumption that there is an executive type is widely accepted, either openly or implicitly.
Yet any executive presumably knows that a company needs all kinds of managers for different
levels of jobs. The qualities most needed by a shop superintendent are likely to be quite
opposed to those needed by a coordinating vice president of manufacturing. The literature of
executive development is loaded with efforts to define the qualities needed by executives, and
by themselves these sound quite rational. Few, for instance, would dispute the fact that a top
manager needs good judgment, the ability to make decisions, the ability to win respect of
others, and all the other well-worn phrases any management man could mention. But one has
only to look at the successful managers in any company to see how enormously their
particular qualities vary from any ideal list of executive virtues.”1
Yet this quest for the executive stereotype has become so intense that many companies, in
concentrating on certain specific traits or qualities, stand in danger of losing sight of their
real concern: what a man can accomplish.
It is the purpose of this article to suggest what may be a more useful approach to the
selection and development of administrators. This approach is based not on what good
executives are (their innate traits and characteristics), but rather on what they do(the
kinds of skills which they exhibit in carrying out their jobs effectively). As used here,
a skill implies an ability which can be developed, not necessarily inborn, and which is
manifested in performance, not merely in potential. So the principal criterion of skillfulness
must be effective action under varying conditions.
This approach suggests that effective administration rests on three basic developable
skills which obviate the need for identifying specific traits and which may provide a useful
way of looking at and understanding the administrative process. This approach is the
outgrowth of firsthand observation of executives at work coupled with study of current
field research in administration.
In the sections which follow, an attempt will be made to define and demonstrate what
these three skills are; to suggest that the relative importance of the three skills varies with
the level of administrative responsibility; to present some of the implications of this
variation for selection, training, and promotion of executives; and to propose ways of
developing these skills.
Three-Skill Approach
It is assumed here that an administrator is one who (a) directs the activities of other
persons and (b) undertakes the responsibility for achieving certain objectives through
these efforts. Within this definition, successful administration appears to rest on three
basic skills, which we will call technical, human, and conceptual. It would be unrealistic to
assert that these skills are not interrelated, yet there may be real merit in examining each
one separately, and in developing them independently.
Technical skill
As used here, technical skill implies an understanding of, and proficiency in, a specific kind
of activity, particularly one involving methods, processes, procedures, or techniques. It is
relatively easy for us to visualize the technical skill of the surgeon, the musician, the
accountant, or the engineer when each is performing his own special function. Technical
skill involves specialized knowledge, analytical ability within that specialty, and facility in
the use of the tools and techniques of the specific discipline.
Of the three skills described in this article, technical skill is perhaps the most familiar
because it is the most concrete, and because, in our age of specialization, it is the skill
required of the greatest number of people. Most of our vocational and on-the-job training
programs are largely concerned with developing this specialized technical skill.
Human skill
As used here, human skill is the executive’s ability to work effectively as a group member
and to build cooperative effort within the team he leads. As technical skill is primarily
concerned with working with “things” (processes or physical objects), so human skill is
primarily concerned with working with people. This skill is demonstrated in the way the
individual perceives (and recognizes the perceptions of) his superiors, equals, and
subordinates, and in the way he behaves subsequently.
The person with highly developed human skill is aware of his own attitudes, assumptions,
and beliefs about other individuals and groups; he is able to see the usefulness and
limitations of these feelings. By accepting the existence of viewpoints, perceptions, and
beliefs which are different from his own, he is skilled in understanding what others really
mean by their words and behavior. He is equally skillful in communicating to others, in
their own contexts, what he means by hisbehavior.
Such a person works to create an atmosphere of approval and security in which
subordinates feel free to express themselves without fear of censure or ridicule, by
encouraging them to participate in the planning and carrying out of those things which
directly affect them. He is sufficiently sensitive to the needs and motivations of others in his
organization so that he can judge the possible reactions to, and outcomes of, various
courses of action he may undertake. Having this sensitivity, he is able and willing to act in a
way which takes these perceptions by others into account.
Real skill in working with others must become a natural, continuous activity, since it
involves sensitivity not only at times of decision making but also in the day-by-day
behavior of the individual. Human skill cannot be a “sometime thing.” Techniques cannot be
randomly applied, nor can personality traits be put on or removed like an overcoat.
Because everything which an executive says and does (or leaves unsaid or undone) has an
effect on his associates, his true self will, in time, show through. Thus, to be effective, this
skill must be naturally developed and unconsciously, as well as consistently, demonstrated
in the individual’s every action. It must become an integral part of his whole being.
Because human skill is so vital a part of everything the administrator does, examples of
inadequate human skill are easier to describe than are highly skillful performances.
Perhaps consideration of an actual situation would serve to clarify what is involved:
When a new conveyor unit was installed in a shoe factory where workers had previously
been free to determine their own work rate, the production manager asked the industrial
engineer who had designed the conveyor to serve as foreman, even though a qualified
foreman was available. The engineer, who reported directly to the production manager,
objected, but under pressure he agreed to take the job “until a suitable foreman could be
found,” even though this was a job of lower status than his present one. Then this
conversation took place:
Production Manager: “I’ve had a lot of experience with conveyors. I want you to keep this
conveyor going at all times except for rest periods, and I want it going at top speed. Get
these people thinking in terms of 2 pairs of shoes a minute, 70 dozen pairs a day, 350 dozen
pairs a week. They are all experienced operators on their individual jobs, and it’s just a
matter of getting them to do their jobs in a little different way. I want you to make that base
rate of 250 dozen pair a week work!” [Base rate was established at slightly under 75% of
the maximum capacity. This base rate was 50%higher than under the old system.]
Engineer: “If I’m going to be foreman of the conveyor unit, I want to do things my way. I’ve
worked on conveyors, and I don’t agree with you on first getting people used to a conveyor
going at top speed.
These people have never seen a conveyor. You’ll scare them. I’d like to run the conveyor at
one-third speed for a couple of weeks and then gradually increase the speed.
“I think we should discuss setting the base rate [production quota before incentive bonus]
on a daily basis instead of a weekly basis. [Workers had previously been paid on a daily
straight piecework basis.]
“I’d also suggest setting a daily base rate at 45 or even 40 dozen pair. You have to set a base
rate low enough for them to make. Once they know they can make the base rate, they will
go after the bonus.”
Production Manager: “You do it your way on the speed; but remember it’s the results that
count. On the base rate, I’m not discussing it with you; I’m telling you to make the 250
dozen pair a week work. I don’t want a daily base rate.”2
Here is a situation in which the production manager was so preoccupied with getting the
physical output that he did not pay attention to the people through whom that output had
to be achieved. Notice, first, that he made the engineer who designed the unit serve as
foreman, apparently hoping to force the engineer to justify his design by producing the
maximum output. However, the production manager was oblivious to (a) the way the
engineer perceived this appointment, as a demotion, and (b) the need for the engineer to be
able to control the variables if he was to be held responsible for maximum output. Instead
the production manager imposed a production standard and refused to make any changes
in the work situation.
Moreover, although this was a radically new situation for the operators, the production
manager expected them to produce immediately at well above their previous output—even
though the operators had an unfamiliar production system to cope with, the operators had
never worked together as a team before, the operators and their new foreman had never
worked together before, and the foreman was not in agreement with the production goals
or standards. By ignoring all these human factors, the production manager not only placed
the engineer in an extremely difficult operating situation but also, by refusing to allow the
engineer to “run his own show,” discouraged the very assumption of responsibility he had
hoped for in making the appointment.
Under these circumstances, it is easy to understand how the relationship between these
two men rapidly deteriorated, and how production, after two months’ operation, was at
only 125 dozen pairs per week (just 75% of what the output had been under the old
system).
Conceptual skill
As used here, conceptual skill involves the ability to see the enterprise as a whole; it
includes recognizing how the various functions of the organization depend on one another,
and how changes in any one part affect all the others; and it extends to visualizing the
relationship of the individual business to the industry, the community, and the political,
social, and economic forces of the nation as a whole. Recognizing these relationships and
perceiving the significant elements in any situation, the administrator should then be able
to act in a way which advances the over-all welfare of the total organization.
Hence, the success of any decision depends on the conceptual skill of the people who make
the decision and those who put it into action. When, for example, an important change in
marketing policy is made, it is critical that the effects on production, control, finance,
research, and the people involved be considered. And it remains critical right down to the
last executive who must implement the new policy. If each executive recognizes the over-all
relationships and significance of the change, he is almost certain to be more effective in
administering it. Consequently the chances for succeeding are greatly increased.
Not only does the effective coordination of the various parts of the business depend on the
conceptual skill of the administrators involved, but so also does the whole future direction
and tone of the organization. The attitudes of a top executive color the whole character of
the organization’s response and determine the “corporate personality” which distinguishes
one company’s ways of doing business from another’s. These attitudes are a reflection of
the administrator’s conceptual skill (referred to by some as his “creative ability”—the way
he perceives and responds to the direction in which the business should grow, company
objectives and policies, and stockholders’ and employees’ interests.
Conceptual skill, as defined above, is what Chester I. Barnard, former president of the New
Jersey Bell Telephone Company, is implying when he says: “…the essential aspect of the
[executive] process is the sensing of the organization as a whole and of the total situation
relevant to it.”3 Examples of inadequate conceptual skill are all around us. Here is one
instance:
In a large manufacturing company which had a long tradition of job-shop type operations,
primary responsibility for production control had been left to the foremen and other
lower-level supervisors. “Village” type operations with small working groups and informal
organizations were the rule. A heavy influx of orders following World War II tripled the
normal production requirements and severely taxed the whole manufacturing
organization. At this point, a new production manager was brought in from outside the
company, and he established a wide range of controls and formalized the entire operating
structure.
As long as the boom demand lasted, the employees made every effort to conform with the
new procedures and environment. But when demand subsided to prewar levels, serious
labor relations problems developed, friction was high among department heads, and the
company found itself saddled with a heavy indirect labor cost. Management sought to
reinstate its old procedures; it fired the production manager and attempted to give greater
authority to the foremen once again. However, during the four years of formalized control,
the foremen had grown away from their old practices, many had left the company, and
adequate replacements had not been developed. Without strong foreman leadership, the
traditional job-shop operations proved costly and inefficient.
In this instance, when the new production controls and formalized organizations were
introduced, management did not foresee the consequences of this action in the event of a
future contraction of business. Later, when conditions changed and it was necessary to
pare down operations, management was again unable to recognize the implications of its
action and reverted to the old procedures, which, under the circumstances, were no longer
appropriate. This compounded conceptual inadequacy left the company at a serious
competitive disadvantage.
Because a company’s over-all success is dependent on its executives’ conceptual skill in
establishing and carrying out policy decisions, this skill is the unifying, coordinating
ingredient of the administrative process, and of undeniable over-all importance.
Relative Importance
We may notice that, in a very real sense, conceptual skill embodies consideration of both
the technical and human aspects of the organization. Yet the concept of skill, as an ability to
translate knowledge into action, should enable one to distinguish between the three skills
of performing the technical activities (technical skill), understanding and motivating
individuals and groups (human skill), and coordinating and integrating all the activities and
interests of the organization toward a common objective (conceptual skill).
This separation of effective administration into three basic skills is useful primarily for
purposes of analysis. In practice, these skills are so closely interrelated that it is difficult to
determine where one ends and another begins. However, just because the skills are
interrelated does not imply that we cannot get some value from looking at them separately,
or by varying their emphasis. In playing golf the action of the hands, wrists, hips, shoulders,
arms, and head are all interrelated; yet in improving one’s swing it is often valuable to
work on one of these elements separately. Also, under different playing conditions the
relative importance of these elements varies. Similarly, although all three are of importance
at every level of administration, the technical, human, and conceptual skills of the
administrator vary in relative importance at different levels of responsibility.
At lower levels
Technical skill is responsible for many of the great advances of modern industry. It is
indispensable to efficient operation. Yet it has greatest importance at the lower levels of
administration. As the administrator moves further and further from the actual physical
operation, this need for technical skill becomes less important, provided he has skilled
subordinates and can help them solve their own problems. At the top, technical skill may be
almost nonexistent, and the executive may still be able to perform effectively if his human
and conceptual skills are highly developed. For example:
In one large capital-goods producing company, the controller was called on to replace the
manufacturing vice president, who had been stricken suddenly with a severe illness. The
controller had no previous production experience, but he had been with the company for
more than 20 years and k…
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