Management Roles

In talking about leadership it is often overlooked that management is just as important. Kotter states that leadership is about coping with change whereas management is about coping with complexity; however they are not mutually exclusive and too much leadership without good management can be just as detrimental to team performance as too much management without any leadership. In this context I sought the original and seminal work on management by Mintzberg, “The Manager’s job: Folklore and Fact”, HBR reprint 90210, August 1975. Whilst debunking the principal myth that management is about planning, organizing, coordinating and control, Mintzberg’s research led to an identification of the key roles of management.

Here’s a summary followed by further implications (“et alors”).

Management Roles

After studying how managers work, Mintzberg concluded that within the context of formal authority in which to act, managers have ten key roles which are organized in three main categories, viz:

Interpersonal Roles

The manger has to be a figurehead performing ceremonial duties. As a leader, the manager has to be responsible for the unit and should motivate and encourage others. The manager is also the key liaison with contacts outside the vertical chain of command.

Informational Roles

The manager is a monitor, scanning the environment for information and quizzing liaison contacts. As a disseminator of information, the manager passes on information to subordinates. As a spokesperson the manager provides information to those outside the organization.

Decisional Roles

The manager should be an entrepreneur continually seeking to improve the unit. As a disturbance handler, the manager responds to external forces. As a resource allocator the manager takes critical decisions and as a negotiator, the manager commits resources.

Et alors?

Unfortunately this is not an à la carte menu: according to Mintzberg, the ten roles form an integrated whole. In other words, you cannot be a successful manager and skip one of the roles! However, with self-reflection a manager should be able to identify any necessary development points. One of the common retorts of any manager is that they do not have sufficient time to cover all the roles; however the author notes that the more senior the manager, the less apparent control they appear to have over their time, yet they seem to cover all the roles! There are two insights as to how this is achieved: 1. Turn imposed obligations into opportunities (e.g. a speech is a chance to lobby a cause); and 2. Turn initiatives into imposable obligations – free time is made, not found!

This article was written in 1975 – a long time before the start of the debate regarding the definitions of leadership and management. What is therefore interesting to note is Mintzberg’s 15 year follow-up on the research (“HBR on Leadership”, 1990). Therein, besides the roles, he also talks about the “insightful” and “cerebral” faces of management. The former “face” is mentioned in reference to intimacy, humanity and personal experience whereas the latter is related to rationality, professionalism, and impersonal objectives. Mintzberg had noted in his further research that as organizations grow, they tend to become more “cerebral”; whereas employees appear to be most engaged with “insightful” managers who connect on a personal level. If you consider the latter to conform to the modern-day definition of a “leader”, then the “insightful / cerebral” management dilemma could therefore be interpreted as one of the very first debates on the definitions of leadership and management…