MGT 5015 - Leadership Alexis Lake Skills Inventory - 1/24/17 After taking the Skills Inventory assessment, I scored high on technical skills and human skills, and moderate on conceptual skills. According to Three-Skill Approach by Robert L. Katz, high technical and human skills, and comparatively lower conceptual skills, are important for “leaders operating at lower levels of management” (Northouse, 2016, p. 57). Additionally, according to Katz, middle managers would require all three skills and upper-level leaders would require just conceptual and human skills. As a young professional, these results are extremely valuable in understanding my development as a leader and the areas I need to learn in order to grow into higher-level management positions. My high score on technical (23) skills directly corresponds with my educational and professional experiences. With a specialized undergraduate degree in public relations, numerous internships, and five years of professional experience in communications roles, I have a strong foundation for the technical needs of my profession. Being a communications specialist or assistant requires me to know the details of how things work and follow a standardized process. For example, in my role at Elmira College I must know understand how the content management system of our website works and know the process for uploading a new story, image, or video. Another example is that I work closely with design programs everyday. I need to know which program to use for a particular project, while also keeping in mind the overall brand standards and guidelines for my organization. In terms of human skills, I gained a high score (25) in this area. This skills area is focused the “ability to work effectively as a group member and to build cooperative effort within the team” (Katz, 1974). This skill has clearly developed through my professional experiences. In my first role as a communications specialist at Corning Incorporated, one area of my role was focused on the consistently and implementation company’s brand standards. I worked with internal clients to create collateral material to support specific events, departments, or affinity groups. I quickly learned how to actively listen, read their body language, understand their feedback, and ask questions about the clients’ needs. Many clients feel very attached to their initiatives so being sensitive and aware of that was critical in the success of each and every interaction. I would then take all of the clients’ input and translate it into designs, imagery, and
other collateral that met brand standards and the overall client goals. This is still part of my everyday role at Elmira College as I create posters, advertisements, and messaging for the different departments across campus. As a communications professional, I am often tasked with synthesizing complex information into simple, understandable wording or headlines, bringing together my human and technical skills. In the last area, conceptual skills, I received a moderate score (19). According to Katz, “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” (Katz, 1974). With a moderate score, it is clear that I am developing this skill area, but still have some room to improve. The gains I have in this skill come through in my last role as a senior communications specialist at Corning Incorporated. In this role, I interacted with all levels of the organization from lab technicians and assembly line workers to division vice presidents and the chef innovation officer. I needed to quickly and swiftly understand how to communicate with each level, what information was or was not important to each professional, and how each individual works together as a whole. I was able to understand how my contributions to a press release would be read by different audiences, how it would impact my product line team, and the company as a whole. A strong and clearly written press release could mean good news coverage, increased product sales, or increased stock prices for the company. I feel that more and more professional experience in large and small organizations will only further my conceptual skills. Conceptual skills seem to tie closely with emotional intelligence. Strong conceptual skills are focused on awareness, or specifically how a leader “perceives and responds to the direction in which the business should grow, company objectives and policies, and stockholders’ and employees’ interests” (Katz, 1974). This corresponds with the self-awareness, motivation, empathy, and social skills (Goleman, 2013) of emotional intelligence. Additionally, according to Katz, conceptual skills are needed in upper level management positions, which require a high degree of experience. This skills area also ties in with emotional intelligence, which, as Daniel Goleman explained, take time to acquire and learn. Emotional intelligence is gained through experience, maturity, and a desire to want to be more empathic, emotionally aware, etc. (Goleman, 2013).
These ideas are contrasted with a recent article in Forbes magazine, which outlined that as individuals climbed higher in an organization, their emotional intelligence skills declined. The article pointed out that in fact, “middle managers stand out with the highest emotional intelligence (EQ) scores in the workplace because companies tend to promote people into supervisory positions who are level-headed and good with people,” (Bradberry, 2015). As employees continue to be promoted “they enter an environment that tends to erode their emotional intelligence…[because] they spend less time in meaningful interactions with their staff and lose sight of how their emotional states impact those around them” (Bradberry, 2015). As a young professional, keeping in mind the importance of conceptual skills and emotional intelligence will be essential as I continue to grow and move into new positions. In order to develop and maintain emotional intelligence, I will have to always work on acknowledging the feelings of others, being aware of my own emotions, and controlling my own emotions. All of these elements, plus my Skills Inventory, will ensure I am able to gain the skills and experience I need to enter into a management position. References: Bradberry, Travis. (2015, January 6). Why Your Boss Lacks Emotional Intelligence. Retrieved January 24, 2017, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/travisbradberry/2015/01/06/why-your-bosslacks-emotional-intelligence/#3daffd17533a Goleman, Daniel. (2013, September 5). Daniel Goleman Explains Emotional Intelligence [Interview]. Retrieved January 16, 2017, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsdqBC1tHTA Katz, Robert L. (1974). Skills of an Effective Administrator. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved January 24, 2017, from https://hbr.org/1974/09/skills-of-an-effective-administrator. Northouse, Peter G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice (7th ed.). Los Angeles, California: Sage Publications.