The Nature of Managerial Work

What it’s about

The Nature of Managerial Work challenges centuries of received wisdom about what managers do by looking at what they actually do. Rather than the tidy abstractions of planning, organizing, coordinating, and controlling, Mintzberg's structured observation of practicing executives reveals a job of relentless pace, brevity, fragmentation, and a strong preference for verbal, current, and ad hoc information. From this evidence he synthesizes a coherent framework of ten roles—interpersonal (figurehead, leader, liaison), informational (monitor, disseminator, spokesman), and decisional (entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator, negotiator)—all flowing from the manager's formal authority and status. For anyone who wants to understand, improve, or teach management as it truly is rather than as folklore imagines it, this book supplies the definitive descriptive foundation.

The through-line

Who it’s for

A practicing or aspiring manager who wants to understand and master what the managerial job really demands.

The problem

The manager faces an overwhelming, fragmented workload with no clear description of what the job actually entails. They feel guilty for never planning as textbooks prescribe, and uncertain whether they are doing the job correctly.

The plan

1. Abandon the classical folklore about what managers do.
2. Observe the real characteristics of managerial work: pace, brevity, fragmentation, verbal bias.
3. Learn the ten roles managers perform across interpersonal, informational, and decisional categories.
4. See how the roles form an integrated whole flowing from authority and information.
5. Use this self-knowledge to diagnose and improve your own managerial effectiveness.

The payoff

The manager understands the true content of the job and its inherent pressures. · The manager consciously balances all ten roles and shares information to delegate effectively. · Management education and self-development are grounded in realistic description.

See our guide

• Study People And Organizations With Scientific Rigor →
• The Behavioral Science Underneath It All →
• Build A People Analytics Function →
• Design The Organization And Change It →
• Do Research That Holds Up →
• Design Surveys People Answer Honestly →
• Understand What Drives Individual Performance →

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Featured in these guides

• The Behavioral Science Underneath It All →Cited source
• Build A People Analytics Function →Cited source
• Design The Organization And Change It →Cited source
• Study People And Organizations With Scientific Rigor →Cited source
• Do Research That Holds Up →Cited source
• Design Surveys People Answer Honestly →Cited source
• Understand What Drives Individual Performance →Cited source