Comparative Analysis for the Managerial Roles Theories of

Minztberg, Katz’s and Luthans

Every organization is being led by an individual manager or group of managers.

This manager must master a mix of important skills, such as, interpersonal, communication,
and technical skills. But the question here, what makes the difference between each manager?
when we can consider him or her a successful or effective manager?
This is the topic of this essay as we will discuss the differences and similarities between three
managerial roles theories of three researchers: Minztberg, Katz’s and Luthans.

The three theories are similar in most roles. Each theory is classified into three or four
main aspects.
Under different definitions, the three researchers agreed that the effective and successful
manager should have the human resources and interpersonal skills (leadership skills).
As he or she is dealing with people, so they should know how to motivate, train, understand
and direct those people.
Another common role between the three theories is “Decisional Role” as named from
Minztberg. It comes under “Conceptual Skills” for Katz and under “Traditional Role” for
Luthans. This role focuses on the importance of the decision-making skill. It is all about
doing the right thing at the right time. Also put the project plan to bring out change.
Mintzberg and Luthans agreed on the importance of the “Communication Role” or what is
named by Mitzberg “Informational Role”. This skill depends on the information gathering
inside and outside the entity. It’s also about spreading the gathered information and
communicate with the company staff.
A remarkable note in Luthans’ theory is the comparison between the effect of Networking
and Communication. We can notice that “among effective managers (defined in terms of
quantity and quality of their performance and the satisfaction and commitment of
employees), communication made the largest relative contribution and networking the least.”
As shown below:
 Talking about the differences between the three theories, we can notice that Katz
ignored the Communication role in his theory. Also, he focused on the Technical aspect as
one of the important roles for managers. Technicality skills are important, but if the manager
doesn’t have the ability and the skills to deal with the people, he is responsible for,
technicality will not help him anymore.
In the opposite, we can find the other two researchers focused on the Human, Interpersonal
and Communicational skills. And they ignored the technicality aspect.
As we mentioned above, technical skills can be developed on the job, not the opposite.

Finally, in my opinion, Katz’s theory is a little bit weaker than the other two theories.
Luthans and Mitzberg theories are more specific and focused on the critical skills that
differentiates from one manager to another.