Management Roles

In the late 1960s, a theorist named Henry Mintzberg did a study and observed executives at work. He found that managers performed many different activities in the course of a day. These activities were usually of short duration because the manager was constantly being interrupted. Mintzberg’s study helped change the predominant view that managers were reflective thinkers who carefully processed information before making decisions. He concluded that there were 10 different but highly interrelated roles that managers perform. He classified them into three sections:

• Interpersonal roles, such as leader, figurehead, and liaison, require the manager to symbolically represent the organization's mission, both inside and outside the company.
• Informational roles, such as spokesperson, disseminator, and monitor, require the manager to receive, collect, and disseminate information regarding the organization.
• Decisional roles, such as entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator, and negotiator, revolve around making choices about planning strategy and utilizing the organization's resources.