Is negotiation just a tool for successful leaders?

In reviewing many of the blogs and posts on the connection between Leadership and Negotiation, I have been struck by the seemingly prevailing view that negotiation is a just a skill set that leaders must possess to be effective.  While I do believe there is a modicum of truth to that, I strongly feel that sentiment misses a much bigger point about negotiation.  While the skills involved in negotiation are fundamentally important to success they are only a necessary, not sufficient, condition for that success.

Consider this analogy.  If you learn the skills associated with negotiation that is akin to learning what the different pieces in the game of chess are and what moves you are capable of making with them. Does that, alone, make you a successful chess player?  Chess aficionado Bobby Fisher, not known for his patience or diplomacy, would scoff at that notion all together.

To be a successful negotiator then you must also think very strategically AND, perhaps most important of all, have a different kind of mindset.  The most effective negotiators I know view things differently. They see negotiations as problems to be solved or overcome through a well thought out strategy, a broad range of a skills, and an uncanny mindset that any problem created by people can be solved by them.

I can't help but think that those who just see negotiation as a skill to be used are missing all that negotiation has to offer.  What do you think?