by Richard Lloyd Evans

Created on: July 21, 2011   Last Updated: July 22, 2011

What are the roles of a manager? This is a key question if you are hiring or even evaluating a manager. Management and organizational guru Henry Mintzberg argues in his volumes of books and articles that managers have ten roles to play in the daily working of any organization. According to Mintzberg, these roles, also called behaviors, are all different, taking in different facets of a manager’s responsibilities. The manager may be weak in some and strong in others, but it is when they are, “…collected together as an integrated whole (gestalt), the capabilities and competencies of a manager can be further evaluated in a role-specific way (LMC, 2009). Here is a brief description of Mintzberg’s Ten Management Roles:

Figurehead – These are all the social and representational duties of a manager, being a public representative to employees and others outside the organization, a symbol of status and authority.

Leader – Here is the driving force of the relationship between the supervisor-employee and involves motivating, directing and overseeing employees in their daily activities and responsibilities.

Liaison – The manager needs to network and exchange information with individuals and groups outside the manager’s area

Monitor – The manager needs to constantly assess the operations and performance of the department’s activities and identify new opportunities, discover problems and record historical information for analysis later.

Dissemination – The manager is a conduit of information from the organization to the employee, which requires a degree of timeliness, accuracy and the ability to filter information to those items important to the employees.

Spokesman – Managers often have to step into a Public Relations role, becoming a public voice to stakeholders of the organization

Entrepreneur – Managers should be looking to improve operations and to empower the development process

Disturbance Handlers – Every manager needs to take charge when there are problems, to provide a calm but firm voice to help the organization solve problems as quickly as possible and allow the department to return to normal operations at the first opportunity.

Resource Allocator – The manager needs to balance the aims, goals and operations along with finite sources of money, people and material for the smooth and efficient operation of the department.

Negotiator – Finally, the manager needs to have

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