This article is from a Harvard Business Review collection on “Leadership Insights”. The Article was written in 1990 and contains some retrospectives on the impact of the article.
The author reviews the “traditional view” of “what Managers do” and then reviews some empirical studies to postulate on “what Managers actually do”.
I found the article fascinating and somewhat true, based on my experience.
Some of the highlights of the “folklore vs. fact” are:
-It is folklore that the manager is a reflective systemic planner. Instead a Managers activities are “characterized by brevity, variety and discontinuity and they are strongly oriented to action and to dislike reflective activities.”
-Managers pace is unrelenting and no time for reflection
-Plans exist only in their heads
-Managers respond to stimuli and are conditioned by their jobs to prefer live to delayed action.
-Folklore that the Manager has no regular duties to perform. In reality, the Managear performs many routine activities including ritual and ceremony, negotiations and processing of information.
-Folklore that the Manager needs aggregated information that a “formal management information system” provides. In fact, the Managers do not use MIS systems. Managers favor verbal media, telephone calls and meetings over documents.
Managers prefer “soft” information (especially gossip, hearsay and speculation) due to it’s timeliness. Gossip today, fact tomorrow! The Manager must reach out for all information in order to make timely decisions.
-The verbal information is stored in the brain (not written down)
-Managers don’t delegate because they have the information and have to “dump” it into other minds-usually too much trouble, so do it themselves.
TEN ROLES OF MANAGER
Interpersonal Roles
1. Figurehead role (ceremonial duties etc.)
-Study showed spent 12% of time on figurehead duties
2. Leader Role (both direct and indirect)
-Leader role is where influence of manager is strongest
3. Liaison Role
-Involves Manager making contact outside the vertical chain of command
Informational Roles
4. Monitor Role
-Solicits, receives and processes information
5. Disseminator Role
-Mgr passes information to subordinates.
6. Spokesperson Role
-Information sent outside the work unit
Decision Roles
7. Entrepreneur Role
-This involves using the information and committing the organization to an action
8. Disturbance Handler Role
-Involuntarily responding to pressures. Change is beyond control, and Manager must act
(Good Managers cannot possibly anticipate the consequences of all the actions they take)
9. Resource Allocator Role
-Mgr is responsible for who gets what.
-Most important resource Manager allocates is own time
10. Negotiator Role
Manager needs to turn “obligations” into “advantages”
I found this article interesting an informative. I plan on using the information to become more precise about how I manage. This is the type of information I wish I had had earlier, but it is also information where you have to have “lived it” (had experience) to fully understand the implications.
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