In the late 1960s, a graduate student at MIT, Henry Mintzberg, undertook a careful study of five executives to determine what these managers did on their jobs.
He concluded that managers perform ten different, highly interrelated roles or sets of behaviors attributable to their jobs.
The ten roles can be grouped as being primarily concerned with interpersonal relationships, the transfer of information, and decision making.
Interpersonal roles
a)     Figurehead role—duties that are ceremonial and symbolic in nature
b)     Leadership role—hire, train, motivate, and discipline employees
c)     Liaison role—contact outsiders who provide the manager with information. These may be individuals or groups inside or outside the organization.
Information roles
a)     Monitor role—collect information from organizations and institutions outside their own
b)     Disseminator role—a conduit to transmit information to organizational members
c)     Spokesperson role—represent the organization to outsiders
Decisional roles
a)     Entrepreneur role—managers initiate and oversee new projects that will improve their organization’s performance.
b)     Disturbance handlers—take corrective action in response to unforeseen problems.
c)     Resource allocators—are responsible for allocating human, physical, and monetary resources.
d)     Negotiator role—discuss issues and bargain with other units to gain advantages for their own unit.
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