Leadership Knowledge, Skills, and Ability
A thin base of literature links leadership ability to behavior and performance (Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, Jacobs, & Fleishman. 2000). Mumford et al. argued that leadership involves a complex form of social problem solving in which a leader's performance is associated with his or her ability to sense the need for change, identify goals, construct viable solution paths, and do so by understanding the complexity of the internal and external environment. Complex problem-solving skills, social judgment skills (Goleman. 1998), and knowledge (Simonton, 1994) have all been linked to effectiveness. Leaders frequently need to generate solutions to multiple, rapidly unfolding problems by coming up with the best alternative solutions in the shortest period of time (Day, 2001;
284 Leadership Models, Methods, and Applications
Mintzberg, 1973). Leaders need skills and abilities to develop and implement solutions with followers, peers, or supervisors operating in complex, dynamic contexts. To do so, leaders need the social skills that come with some of the traits identified earlier (House & Baetz, 1979; Yukl & Van Fleet, 1992; Zaccaro, 1996). Moreover, effective leaders must also have the skills to persuade followers—often in very difficult, complex social situations—to accept and support their proposed solutions (Conger & Kanungo, 1998).
Leaders need a certain knowledge set in order to come up with solutions required to address challenges and opportunities (Mumford et al., 2000). For example, Simonton (1984, 1990) reported that charismatic leaders had a rather unique set of career experiences that provided them with the experiential knowledge to solve problems confronting their follow-^ ers. Ironically, although the acquisition of knowledge and W skills is clearly important to leadership effectiveness, the area has been downplayed in the leadership literature; however, some exceptions exist (Jacobs & Jaques, 1987). Leaders who accumulate knowledge characterized by a broader and longer time perspective are expected to be more successful as they ascend to higher level positions in organizations (Jaques, 1977). Similarly, tacit experience and knowledge were shown to have significant, positive relationships with leadership effectiveness and performance (Sternberg & Wagner, 1993).
There are several important issues to consider in this emerging area of interest. First, how does the accumulation of life experiences shape the knowledge and implicit or schematic structures of leaders through the development of intelligence, tacit knowledge, wisdom, or perspective-taking capacity? How do such experiences impact the leader's development and performance? How can we use these measures in the selection of leaders? For example, it seems highly feasible to use the Sternberg's work on tacit knowledge as one means of determining who is more or less able to lead.