Henry Mintzbergs 10 management Roles:

Management expert Professor Henry Mintzberg has argued that a managers work can be boiled
down to ten common roles. According to Mintzberg, these roles, or expectations for a managers
behavior, fall into three categories: informational (managing by information), interpersonal
(managing through people), and decisional (managing through action).

This chart summarizes a managers ten roles:

Mintzbergs Managerial Roles

Category Role Activity Examples

Informational Monitor Seek and acquire Scan/read trade press,

work-related periodicals, reports; attend
information seminars and
training; maintain personal
contacts

Disseminator Communicate/ Send memos and reports;

disseminate inform staffers and
information to others subordinates of decisions
within the
organization

Spokesperso Communicate/transmit Pass on memos, reports and

n information to informational materials;
outsiders participate in
conferences/meetings and
report progress
Interpersonal Figurehead Perform social and Greet visitors, sign legal
legal duties, act as documents, attend ribbon
symbolic leader cutting ceremonies,
host receptions, etc.

Leader Direct and motivate Includes almost all interactions

subordinates, select with subordinates
and train employees

Liaison Establish and maintain Business correspondence,

contacts within and participation in meetings with
outside the representatives
organization of other divisions or
organizations.

Decisional Entrepreneur Identify new ideas and Implement innovations; Plan

initiate improvement for the future
projects

Disturbance Deals with disputes or Settle conflicts between

Handler problems and takes subordinates; Choose strategic
corrective action alternatives;
Overcome crisis situations

Resource Decide where to apply Draft and approve of plans,

Allocator resources schedules, budgets; Set
priorities

Negotiator Defends business Participates in and directs

interests negotiations within team,
department, and organization

In the real world, these roles overlap and a manager must learn to balance them in order to
manage effectively. While a managers work can be analyzed by these individual roles, in
practice they are intermixed and interdependent. According to Mintzberg: The manager who
only communicates or only conceives never gets anything done, while the manager who only
does ends up doing it all alone.

Note: This piece of work could be read and adapted to the school context to accommodate the
different roles that school heads play. However it has been extensively used and has proved to be
useful to check the type of skills required in each role and to appraise oneself and move ahead on
the path of self development as a leader.