As a leader, one has to play many roles in an organization to achieve the intended goals and objectives. What skill sets are important is difficult to define. But from a general perspective, we can classify the degree of requirement of such skill sets as under:
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1. Human Skill:
In order to get cooperation of his followers, a leader has to successfully resolve many people-oriented issues than job-related issues. He must understand human behaviour, know their needs, sentiments, emotions, motivations and their contemplated actions and reactions to a particular situation. Therefore, without human relation skills, which emphasize more on understanding the people, one cannot be a successful leader.
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We have already discussed two essential HR skills requirement, i.e., empathy and objectivity, while explaining leadership attitude. These apart, a good leader also should have communication, teaching and social skills, all of which form the part of human skills. A leader should have good communication skills to be able to persuade, inform, stimulate, direct and convince the followers.
Communication is the transfer of information in the form of an understandable message. It helps in establishing and disseminating the goals of an enterprise. It also enables the leader to create a climate in which people want to perform. Expecting the followers to perform would not be possible, unless the leader himself successfully demonstrate how to accomplish a particular task.
Teaching skill, therefore, is also an important component of human skills. Similarly, to win the confidence and loyalty of followers, leaders must also have the requisite social skills. Social skills require a leader to understand the followers and be helpful, empathetic and friendly with them.
2. Conceptual Skill:
This skill requires sensing the organization from overall perspective. A leader must have the ability to look at the organization as a whole. He should be able to relate various functions of the organization to how changes affect functions. Understanding of the organization, its financial status and its competitors and understanding of the functional nitty-gritty and their interrelationships are the essential requirements of conceptual skills.
3. Technical Skill:
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Technical skill involves specialized knowledge, analytical skill and competence (competence is the aggregation of skill, knowledge and abilities) for doing a job. These apart, principles, procedures and operations of a job also add to technical skills. Therefore, expecting followers to do the job, without the technical skills of leaders would not be possible.
4. Personal Skill:
To get the best from followers, a leader also should have the personal skills like, intelligence, emotional maturity, personal motivation, integrity and flexibility of mind.