ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on leader characteristics that are particularly susceptible to refinement. Skills are defined as broadly applied, learned characteristics of leader performance. The chapter discusses six leadership skills: communication skills, social skills, influence skills, analytic skills, technical skills, and a proclivity for continual learning. There are four main elements of communication skills in regard to leadership: oral communication, written communication skills, listening and auxiliary communication skills. The three major elements of the social skills include personal likability, expressiveness and charisma. Four major elements constitute analytic skills. They are memory, discrimination, cognitive complexity and ambiguity tolerance. It is also understood that leaders who want to have a significant impact on operations frequently have strong technical skills and involvement. Continual learning means taking responsibility for acquiring new information, looking at old information in new ways, and finding ways to use new and old information creatively.
