Extension Leaders' Self-Evaluation Of Leadership Skill Areas

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine the importance of and level of proficiency in six leadership skill areas as perceived by current Extension leaders. For the purposes of this study, Extension leaders were defined as the individuals from 1862 and 1890 land-grant institutions that were most responsible for the day-to-day operations of Extension in their states, and generally had the title of state director or administrator. Participants rated the Human, Conceptual, Communication, Emotional Intelligence, and Industry Knowledge skills areas between important to very important and rated the Technical Skills area between somewhat important and important. In terms of their proficiency within each skill area, participants rated themselves between above average to very proficient in the Human, Conceptual, Communication, Emotional Intelligence, and Industry Knowledge skills areas and between average and above average in Technical Skills. The smallest gap between perceived importance and self-perceived proficiency occurred in the area of Industry Knowledge Skills while the largest gap occurred in the Conceptual Skills area.