Leadership in Action: Issues and Observations - Finding True value in Leadership

SKILL SETS

The paradigm of leadership as effective management overwhelmingly dominates the field of leadership studies today.

Relying on the apparent biological fascination with power and using research findings from psychology and organizational behavior, the literature on leadership as management has been about compiling lists and recipes on how to achieve stated goals by convincing the workers that the company's goals should be their personal goals as well.

These recipes are usually expressed in terms of cognitive skills, such as communication skills or the skills of the proactive thinker who seeks to understand first in order to be understood.

Recently, however, some have argued that emotional skills are more important than cognitive skills. ...