Thinking and Intellectual Skills for Leaders in Adult Care

Six levels of thinking and intellectual skills support the leader in adult care to deliver competent problem-solving and decision-making skills in the health and social care setting.

Introduction to thinking and intellectual skills 

Thinking skills involve a series of intellectual skills of increasing level and complexity. 

A leader in adult care will be required to deal with complex situations and will need to use highly developed thinking and intellectual skills to be effective.

Allow yourself time for thinking and intellectual activities

Why developing thinking and intellectual skills are important 

Anyone working in a modern workplace cannot depend on routine behaviour or traditions when making decisions. 

To be successful at work, workers, leaders, and managers will need to develop the abilities to think critically, to be able to solve problems, and be able to make good decisions. 

In health and social care settings, the pace of work and the complexity of issues faced by the leader in adult care require highly developed thinking skills to quickly make the correct decisions.

Developing competent thinking and intellectual skills enables an individual to evolve into a high-performance professional.

To progress as a manager or supervisor, the worker must be able to communicate, to work with others, be assertive, and be able to negotiate. However, these skills by themselves will not be sufficient to progress to higher levels of management, or make the individual successful as a leader. 

Working as a leader or manager involves being able to communicate assertively, competently work with others, being able to negotiate, and think critically, solve problems, and make decisions. 

Managers and leaders often operate in a rapidly changing environment, and they must be capable of intelligent and independent thought. Hence, development of thinking and intellectual skills enhances of the leader in adult care.

The levels of thinking and intellectual skills to develop include 

1. Gaining knowledge 

2. Understanding 

3. Applying knowledge and understanding 

4. Analysing 

5. Synthesising 

6. Evaluating 

Each of these levels of thinking and intellectual skills plays a part in critical thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making for the leader in adult care.

Gaining knowledge 

Gaining knowledge is the lowest level of intellectual skills. 

Gaining knowledge is the process of getting new information about a subject.

Gaining knowledge provides the foundation for knowing something by remembering or recalling information, facts, ideas, or phenomena. 

Gaining knowledge is the first step towards a process of reasoning and critical thinking.

The knowledge acquired helps to provide a picture of the situation being considered. 

Self-directed learning is the most effective way to gain knowledge. 

Self-directed learning is an effective way to gain knowledge and understanding

Gaining knowledge helps to answer the questions such as; 

Who? 

What? 

Where? 

When? 

If an individual gains knowledge they can recall information, make observations, or arrive at a definition, such as: 

"What is leadership?"

"Who is Henri Fayol?" 

Gaining knowledge provides a foundation for understanding, application, analysis, synthesising, and evaluation of information via use of critical thinking, problem solving and decision-making. 

Gaining knowledge by itself does not equip a person for better decision-making.

The key to optimum decision-making is to ensure that the knowledge acquired is relevant to the situation. It is therefore important to be discerning in the knowledge used for decision-making, by ensuring that information are interpreted and analysed appropriately. 

Understanding 

Understanding is the second lowest level in the hierarchy of intellectual skills. 

Understanding involves the understanding of facts, ideas, or concepts. 

Understanding leads to transfer of knowledge to new and unfamiliar situations. 

Understanding is part of the critical thinking process and enables the individual to: 

Describe 

Compare 

Contrast 

Explain 

For example, when an individual understands the facts, ideas, or concepts, then they will be able to explain in their own words (without copying the textbook or copying a website), 

For example "Compare the skills of a leader with the skills of a manager."

A good test of understanding is the ability to explain to other people the concepts, theories or situations being considered.

Applying knowledge and Understanding 

Application of knowledge and understanding is the third level in intellectual skills hierarchy. 

This is the application of facts or ideas to real life to solve problems in the workplace or predict consequences. 

The process of application of knowledge and understanding involves first of all gaining knowledge and demonstrating understanding of the facts or ideas; then applying them, restructuring them or re-organising the information, so that meaningful conclusions can be made about the new situation. 

Key verbs used when seeking application of knowledge and understanding include: 

Apply 

Solve 

Classify 

Select 

Employ 

Use 

For example: 

"Classify these customers according to their contributions to our company's profitability".

Analysing 

Analysing is the fourth level in thinking and intellectual skills hierarchy. 

Analysis involves breaking down a given situation into its constituent parts. 

The intellectual skill of analysis is of value for critical thinking for the leader in adult care because analysis enables the ability to separate and categorise data. 

When the analysis has been done, it becomes possible to probe behind the surface and look for unseen or abstract principles that give the professional a greater understanding of the problem or situation that is being considered. 

When the leader in adult care becomes competent in analysing information, it becomes possible for them to answer "Why?" questions, for example: 

"Why do you think increasing advertising expenditure leads to an increase in sales?" 

"Analyse how coaching and mentoring can be used to compliment leadership style." 

Being competent in analysis means the leader in adult care will be able to draw inferences, identify motives, identify causal links, and be skilled at finding evidence to support or dispute generalisations. 

Once the leader has completed analysis of a situation or problem, the resulting information, research or intelligence will provide the basis for undertaking synthesis, and evaluation.  

Synthesising 

Synthesising is the fifth level in thinking and intellectual skills hierarchy.  

Synthesising is the penultimate intellectual skill in the hierarchy of thinking skills. 

Synthesising draws together the previous components after they have been analysed. 

Synthesis involves recreating the whole situation once it has been dissected, and learning from this process. 

For the leader in adult care, the synthesis skill is useful in mapping and understanding what happened in issues of incidents, near-misses, errors and mistakes, and implementing correct processes to prevent these issues recurring.

When the leader in adult care has completed the process of synthesis, they will be able to plan, predict, propose, or develop.

Following synthesis, the leader in adult care will be able to answer questions similar to: 

"What do you predict would happen if we are to increase the size of our workforce by 20%?" 

When a person has mastered the skill of synthesis they will become capable of original independent thought. 

Evaluating 

Evaluating is the sixth level in thinking and intellectual skills hierarchy. 

Once the leader has gone through the previous 5 levels of thinking, they will be able to recreate a situation and evaluate that situation, and judge the situation in order to reach a conclusion or make a decision. 

To demonstrate competence in evaluation, the leader in adult care must look at all the evidence surrounding a given situation, and consider both sides of the argument, meaning considering both the arguments supporting the issue/decision and also the arguments against it, to "see both sides of the coin". 

After successfully evaluating a situation, the leader in adult care will be able to do the following: 

Judge 

Decide 

Evaluate 

Appraise 

When an individual can competently evaluate a situation, they will be able to give considered and balanced opinions on issues, determine the validity of ideas, or judge the merit of a solution to a problem. 

A person will need evaluation skills to be able to answer questions such as: 

"Evaluate the interaction between the values and culture of an adult social care setting." 

"Evaluate the value of using assets and resources outside traditional services and in the community." 

Evaluation skills are considered the highest level of thinking and intellectual skills that a leader in adult care can develop. 

Evaluation is an essential skill for leaders and managers and enables them to be able to arrive at a reasoned and objective judgement on a particular issue, bringing together the use of all six thinking and intellectual skills, as follows. 

The leader or manager must gain knowledge which they fully understand, and they must be able to apply the appropriate knowledge to the situation under consideration. 

The leader or manager in adult care must be able to break the situation down and consider each element independently, before putting the whole back together again. 

Then finally, the leader or manager must evaluate the issue or situation, looking at all the evidence in favour and also reviewing all the evidence against, before arriving at the judgement.  

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