Leadership Traits and Skills

Introduction
The constructs used most often in the trait approach include traits, skills and values
of individual leaders. The term trait refers to variety of individual attributes, including
aspects of personality, temperament, needs, motives and values. Needs and motives are
important because they influence attention to information and events, and they guide,
energize and sustain behavior. Most traits are jointly determined by learning and by an
inherited capacity to gain satisfaction from particular types of stimuli or experiences.
Values are important because they influence a persons preferences, perception of problems
and choice of behavior. It is usually assumed that people are intrinsically motivated to
defend their self esteem and to maintain consistency among their core values, social
identities and behavior. The term skill refers to the ability to do something in an effective
manner. Like traits, skills are determined jointly by learning and heredity.
Several types of research have been used in trait approach. In the first type of study,
researchers seeks to discover traits and skills that predict whether a person will pursue a
leadership career or emerge as an informal leader in a group. The second type of research
seeks to discover how the traits and skills of managers are related to measures of leadership
effectiveness in their current management positions. The third type of research uses
longitudinal studies conducted over a period of several years to discover traits and skills
that predict advancement to higher levels of management. A fourth type of research
compares managers who advanced successfully to top management to managers who
initially advanced but then derailed in their careers because they were dismissed. Some
traits and skills increase the likelihood that a leader will be effective but they do not

guarantee effectiveness. Most of the managers had strong technical skills, they had a string
of prior successes and they were initially viewed by others as fast risers in their company.
Every manager had both strengths and weaknesses, none of the successful executives had
all strengths and none of the derailed managers had all of the weaknesses. In contrast, the
successful managers were calm, confident and predictable during crises.
The successful managers were more focused on the immediate task and the needs of
subordinates than on competing with rivals or impressing superiors. In contrast, the
successful managers were more sensitive, tactful and considerate. They were able to
understand and get along with all types of people and they developed a larger network of
cooperative relationships. Successful managers usually had experience in a variety of
different types of situations where they acquired a broader perspective and expertise in
dealing with different types of problems.

Skills and Effective Leadership

Many different taxonomies have been proposed for classifying managerial skills,
but the most useful and parsimonious taxonomy uses the three broadly defined skill
categories. The technical skills are primarily concerned with things, the interpersonal skills
( or social skills) are primarily concerned with people and the conceptual skills ( or
cognitive skills) are primarily concerned with ideas and concepts.
Technical Skills
Technical skills include knowledge about methods, processes and equipment for
conducting the specialized activities of the managers organizational unit. Technical skills
also include factual knowledge about the organization ( rules, structure, management
systems, employee characteristics) and knowledge about the organizations products and
services ( technical specifications, strengths and limitations ). This type of knowledge is
acquired by a combination of formal education, training and job experience. Managers who
supervise the work of others need extensive knowledge of the techniques and equipment
used by subordinates to perform the work. Technical knowledge of products and processes
is necessary to plan and organize work operations, to direct and train subordinates with
specialized activities and monitor and evaluate their performance.
Technical knowledge is also relevant for entrepreneurial managers. The inspirational
vision of a new product or service may seem to spring from out of nowhere, but it is
actually the result of many years of learning and experience. Managers also need to have
extensive knowledge of the products and services provided by competitors.

Conceptual Skills
Specific conceptual skills that can be measured with aptitude tests include analytical
ability, logical thinking, concept information, inductive reasoning and deductive reasoning.
Conceptual skills are essential for effective planning, organizing and problem solving. A
major administrative responsibility is coordination of the separate, specialized parts of the
organization. To accomplish effective coordination, a manager needs to understand how the
various parts of the organization relate to each other and how changes is one part of the
system affect the other parts. Managers must also be able to comprehend how changes in
the external environment will affect the organization. Strategic planning requires
considerable ability to analyze events and perceive trends, anticipate changes and
recognize opportunities and potential problems.
A manager with high cognitive complexity is able to develop a better mental model
of the organization to help understand the most critical factors and the relationships among
them. Managers with weak conceptual skills tend to develop a simplistic mental model that
is not especially useful because it is unable to describe the complex processes, causal
relationships and flow of events in the organization and external environment. Conceptual
skills have be measured with a variety of different methods, including traditional aptitude
test, situational tests, interviews, critical incidents and constructed response tasks. Research
with traditional pencil and paper measures of conceptual skills find strong evidence that
they are related to managerial effectiveness, especially in high-level managerial positions.

Interpersonal Skills
Specific types of interpersonal skills such as empathy, social insight, charm, tact and
diplomacy, persuasiveness and oral communication ability are essential to develop and
maintain cooperative relationships with subordinates, superior, peers and outsider. Someone
who is charming, tactful and diplomatic will have more cooperative relationships than a
person who is insensitive and offensive. Interpersonal skills are essential for influencing
people. Empathy is the ability to understand another persons motives, values and emotions,
and social insight is the ability to understand what types of behavior are socially acceptable
in a particular situation. Another interpersonal skill is the ability to use cues from others to
understand ones own behavior and how it affects other people. Influence tactics and
impression management tactics are used more effectively by people who have strong
interpersonal skills.
Interpersonal skills also enhance the effectiveness of relationship-oriented
behaviors. Strong interpersonal skills help a manager listen in an attentive, sympathetic and
nonjudgmental way to somebody with a personal problem, complaint or criticism. Empathy
is important for understanding the needs and feelings of others and determining how to
provide support and sympathy. Empathy is also useful for determining effective ways to
resolve conflicts. Some people have misconception that interpersonal skill is nothing more
than considerate behavior to be turned on in special situations.