2009-11-11 05:18:29 - The Canadian academic, Henry Mintzberg and his ten managerial roles.

The Canadian academic, Henry Mintzberg who had trained as a mechanical engineer, wrote his PhD thesis at the MIT Sloan School of Management analysing the actual work habits and time management of chief executive officers (CEOs). In 1973, Mintzberg's thesis on the nature of managerial work was adopted as a study and published for a wider audience.

Mintzberg's empirical research involved

observing and analysing the activities of the CEOs of five private and semi-public organisations. Previous management behaviour studies had concentrated on team and subordinate behaviour or organisational structure rather than on the day-to-day reality of managerial behaviour.



To describe the work life of a CEO, Mintzberg first identified six characteristics of the job:

1. Managers process large, open-ended workloads under tight time pressure - a manager's job is never done.
2. Managerial activities are relatively short in duration, varied and fragmented and often self-initiated.
3. CEOs prefer action and action driven activities and dislike mail and paperwork.
4. They prefer verbal communication through meetings and phone conversations.
5. They maintain relationships primarily with their subordinates and external parties and least with their superiors.
6. Their involvement in the execution of the work is limited although they initiate many of the decisions.



Mintzberg then identified ten separate roles in managerial work, each role defined as an organised collection of behaviours belonging to an identifiable function or position. He separated these roles into three subcategories: interpersonal contact (1, 2, 3), information processing (4, 5, 6) and decision making (7-10).