ABSTRACT
This chapter sets out to: review skills theories of leadership and provide an academic critique of the efficacy of the executive coaching industry, a sector that seeks to capitalize on the notion that leadership skills can be taught. Critiques of skills theory are provided alongside a discussion on how leadership skills can be measured. The individual attributes of a leader are those skills and traits that pre-empt the development of leadership competencies. The skills theories of leadership consequently open our eyes to the need to deconstruct leadership via recognition of the complex environment within which it exists. If the short-term intervention focuses on the development of a technical skill with the concurrent development of consciousness of one's expert power within the context of the utilization of that skill, this seems a logical way of developing leadership. Skills theories of leadership do not appear to diametrically oppose the trait approach.
