According to Mintzberg we play many different roles as managers and leaders. Sometimes we play these different roles several times in one day. Mintzberg separates the ten roles of management into three categories. These are Interpersonal, Informational and Decisional. The first of the three includes; Figurehead, Leader and Liaison. The focus of these is to provide ideas and information while caring for the social, inspirational and performance of the members of your team.
The Informational category includes the roles of Monitor, Disseminator and Spokesman. It is in this category that you are expected to process, seek out and communicate information for your team. You are essentially the conduit for your team and the information that needs to flow.
The final category is Decisional. This is where the leader uses the information and applies it to decision making, managing change or handling roadblocks that may get in the way of team and organizational needs.
This means you may need to be able to negotiate and direct important decisions that effect the lives and job security of the people you are asked to manage.
Each of the roles discussed by Mintzberg are important and required in leadership and managerial positions. In order to learn more about these roles the website mindtools.com provides and in depth analyses of these different roles and how to gain additional insight on how to improve your abilities in each role.
Simon Sinek's talk on the "why" of the leadership was interesting to say the least. My father recently started working for a company called SimplyMac. He runs the marketing for the company and is in charge of taking it from a small company mostly located in Utah to a large national chain. In talking to him about Apple products I definitely have learned to appreciate what Apple has created. Nobody buys an apple product because they are the best bang for your buck or because they are the most powerful. People buy Apple products because for years and years Steve Jobs created a product that told the consumer they were on a quest for perfection and innovation. They told people why they did it. When Steve Jobs presented products he didn't fill the presentations with the facts and tech specs of their products. He showed pictures of Mac Book Airs fitting in manila folders and how you can capture the perfect photo on your phone.
When I ask most people why they love Apple they always say, "it just works". I'm really happy that they can buy a product that works. The reality is my HP works also and so does my Dell desktop. In many ways they work better and I spent less on them. I don't tune in every year though when Dell has a new product with excitement and anticipation. Although I don't own many Apple products I still tune in to see what they are offering next. Even to a cynic like myself Apple still has found a way to grasp my attention and reel me in, even it is just for that hour or so that they are announcing a new product. It is when we can show people why we are are there for them that we can truly influence others. If a company or a leader can tell people why they should care about them or their product they can truly influence others and convince them to follow almost anywhere they go.
The "why" is how we can lead people and how we can live forever. People like the Wright Brothers, Steve Jobs and Martin Luther King will forever live in the minds and hearts of millions of people all over the world. They will live on, not because they told us what they were doing but because they truly had passion about their vision and were able to project that to the world. The world then felt that passion and decided to follow. That is what makes great men great.
Sinek, S. (2009). How Great Leaders Inspire Action.
www.mindtools.com. (n.d.). Retrieved from www.mindtools.com:
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/management-roles.htm
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