As a manager, you need to perform many different roles to meet your

responsibilities. One minute you might be resolving a conflict between team

members, and the next, you can be representing your department at a meeting. You're
expected to restore harmony and productivity in one area, and then show your
technical and strategic expertise in another. Your challenge is to acquire the
skills for each role so that you can deal with every situation successfully. And
this is where Mintzberg's Management Roles can help. In his book, "Mintzberg on
Management: Inside Our Strange World of Organizations," Henry Mintzberg identified
10 essential roles that managers play. These are figurehead, leader, liaison,
monitor, disseminator, spokesperson, entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource
allocator, and negotiator. He grouped these roles into three types: interpersonal,
informational, and decisional. For example, a figurehead is an interpersonal type.
If you're a manager, you have social, ceremonial, and legal responsibilities.
You'll be a source of inspiration and people will look up to you. If you're a
monitor, you're fulfilling an informational type. You regularly seek out news
related to your organization and industry, and you're aware of your team's
productivity and wellbeing. A disturbance handler is a decisional type. When a team
hits an unexpected roadblock, it's the manager who must take charge and mediate any
disputes. Mintzberg's model can help you to identify your leadership priorities and
weaknesses. This will give you a starting point for developing your management
skills in all the roles that you need to perform. To learn more about Mintzberg's
10 Management Roles and the other tools that will support you in developing each
role, read the article that a accompanies this video. © 2022 Mind Tools by Emerald
Works Limited.