Skills Model

Leadership Skills

It is vital for any successful company or institution to have leaders that can motivate, influence, and teach their employees. The type of leadership skills that are taught or envisaged should be upheld to ensure that it becomes a culture in the organization. In the company that this essay is describing, the Okra Foundation, the skill model is employed. This being an organization that deals with humanitarian issues, the skills model of leadership is the most suitable. This is because it is pivotal for the leader to be a person capable of solving complex social problems. Okra uniquely does this by identifying the three competencies, which are knowledge, problem-solving skills, and social-judgment skills (Katz, 1955). These three are critical determinants of how leaders are chosen in the organization.

The Impact of the way the Skills Model is employed

The Okra Foundation does not have a very well structured way of integrating the skills model into the tribal stage. Therefore, this has led to the organization having one leader for a very long period – to be exact almost fifteen years, and this goes to show that the skills model needs a bit of revamping on their end. The most significant impact on the organization is that there has been stagnation, which is not good for the company and most people who want to become leaders in the organization.

The current leader of this organization is still a very competent leader, and still able to guide the company towards achieving its objectives. In this respect, one could conclude that there is a minimal connection between the skills model being used by the institution and the tribal stage of the organization. The leader has always been known to guide the majority of the employees but once they get to the final stage of the Tribe, they start their organizations or they are picked up by other organizations.

The Recommendations on Changes that should be made

According to the research that has been undertaken, this institution could do much better not only in terms of the type of leadership skills employed but also how leaders should be groomed. Leaders are made and not born, and once the organization understands this, it will enable them to adapt to the type of leader that they want to have at the moment (Katz, 1955). Additionally, some leaders should be chosen as per their knowledge and how the environment is at the time. In some other companies this is normally the issue, some leaders are chosen due to the business climate at the time (Logan, 2008).

Another area that could be addressed is when the company is grooming specific individuals to become leaders in the future. The company should try and groom one person at a time and try to look into either the three-skill approach or the skills model (Logan, 2008). The leaders of this company will therefore be able to adapt to a number of situations that offer different challenges and this will help them to be more valuable to the company (Chin, 2015).

The Okra foundation should also be able to engage in both skills models by acknowledging what they might need at that moment. Situations change and the fact that the company is one that deals with social challenges in different countries makes it much more important, it is only right that the vital issues are focused on by having a leader who can work on addressing the problems immediately they happen (Mumford, 2000). The company should be able to know that the leaders they should be able to produce leaders who can be better than the last (Mumford, 2000). 

Action Plan

This essay will also effect an action plan to ensure that the challenges mentioned above, are addressed. The institution should make sure that they can bring in proper leaders who can be able to nurture leadership in their employees (Mann, 1959). This can be done by ensuring that the leaders fit into the two skill mechanisms in place. This will enable the leader that comes into position to be able to deal with issues based on how they have been trained, which means they can do so using either mechanism (Mann, 1959). This is critical if the institution should be able to move forward. This could also mean that a specific culture could be offset once this happens in the Okra Foundation.

Conclusion

Leadership is key in any institution and it is crucial to have leaders who have their company’s interest at heart rather than their interests. Once this happens, a leader can pass this on to others who want to become leaders like him. By adhering to the skills mechanisms, it becomes less of a challenge to the other leaders and it becomes a culture within an institution.

References

Chin, R. (2015). Examining teamwork and leadership in the fields of public administration, leadership, and management. Team Performance Management, 21 (3/4), 199–216.

Katz, R. L. (1955). Skills of an Effective Administrator. Harvard Business Review, 33 (1).  [EBSCOhost] Business Source Complete.

Logan, D., King, J., & Fischer-Wright, H. (2008). Tribal leadership: Leveraging natural groups to build a thriving organization. New York: Harper Collins Publishers.

Mann, R. D. (1959). A review of the relationship between personality and performance in small groups. Psychological Bulletin, 56 (4), 241–270.Mumford, M. D., Zaccaro, S. J., Harding, D. F., Jacobs, T. O. & Fleishman, E. A. (2000). Leadership skills for a changing world: Solving complex social problems. The Leadership Quarterly, 11 (1), 11-35.