ABSTRACT
Supervisors with good interpersonal skills were promoted to managers; and managers with good conceptual skills were promoted to executive roles. This chapter explores this scheme, which is oversimplified and therefore frequently violated in practice, and it obscures other important distinctions. A leaders' task-oriented focus tends to decrease when operations are running smoothly, employees are well-trained and self-managed, client and customer demands are shrill or changing, or when a long-term crisis requires a fundamentally different approach. Task-oriented competencies include monitoring and assessing work, operations planning, clarifying roles and objectives, informing, delegating, problem solving, and managing innovation and creativity. Managing the technical aspects of innovation and creativity is highly related to managing personnel change and managing organizational change. Task-oriented behavioral competencies form a basic dynamic for leaders at all levels and in all positions. Leaders need to get things done correctly, fix problems, and stay up to date.
