What is the informational role?

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As a manager, you probably fulfill many different roles every day.

For instance, as well as leading your team, you might find yourself resolving a conflict, negotiating new contracts, representing your department at a board meeting, or approving a request for a new computer system.

Put simply, you're constantly switching roles as tasks, situations, and expectations change. Management expert and professor Henry Mintzberg recognized this, and he argued that there are ten primary roles or behaviors that can be used to categorize a manager's different functions.

In this article and video, we'll examine these roles and see how you can use your understanding of them to improve your management skills.

Click here to read a transcript of our management roles video.

What Are Mintzberg's Management Roles?

Mintzberg published his Ten Management Roles in his book, "Mintzberg on Management: Inside our Strange World of Organizations," in 1990.

The ten management roles are:

1. Figurehead.
2. Leader.
3. Liaison.
4. Monitor.
5. Disseminator.
6. Spokesperson.
7. Entrepreneur.
8. Disturbance Handler.
9. Resource Allocator.
10. Negotiator.

From MINTZBERG ON MANAGEMENT by Henry Mintzberg. Copyright © 1989 by Henry Mintzberg. Reprinted by permission of Free Press, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

The 10 roles are then divided up into three categories, as follows:

Let's look at each of the ten managerial roles in greater detail.

Interpersonal Management Roles

The managerial roles in this category involve providing information and ideas.

1. Figurehead – As a manager, you have social, ceremonial and legal responsibilities. You're expected to be a source of inspiration. People look up to you as a person with authority, and as a figurehead.
2. Leader – This is where you provide leadership for your team, your department or perhaps your entire organization; and it's where you manage the performance and responsibilities of everyone in the group.
3. Liaison – Managers must communicate with internal and external contacts. You need to be able to network effectively on behalf of your organization.

Informational Management Roles

The managerial roles in this category involve processing information.

1. Monitor – In this role, you regularly seek out information related to your organization and industry, looking for relevant changes in the environment. You also monitor your team, in terms of both their productivity, and their well-being.
2. Disseminator – This is where you communicate potentially useful information to your colleagues and your team.
3. Spokesperson – Managers represent and speak for their organization. In this role, you're responsible for transmitting information about your organization and its goals to the people outside it.

Decisional Management Roles

The managerial roles in this category involve using information.

1. Entrepreneur – As a manager, you create and control change within the organization. This means solving problems, generating new ideas, and implementing them.
2. Disturbance Handler – When an organization or team hits an unexpected roadblock, it's the manager who must take charge. You also need to help mediate disputes within it.
3. Resource Allocator – You'll also need to determine where organizational resources are best applied. This involves allocating funding, as well as assigning staff and other organizational resources.
4. Negotiator – You may be needed to take part in, and direct, important negotiations within your team, department, or organization.

Applying Mintzberg's Management Roles

You can use Mintzberg's 10 Management Roles model as a frame of reference when you're thinking about developing your own skills and knowledge. (This includes developing yourself in areas that you consciously or unconsciously shy away from.)

First, examine how much time you currently spend on each managerial role. Do you spend most of your day leading? Managing conflict? Disseminating information? This will help you decide which areas to work on first.

Next, get a piece of paper and write out all ten roles. Score yourself from 1-5 on each one, with 1 being "Very skilled" to 5 being "Not skilled at all."

Once you've identified your weak areas, use the following resources to start improving your abilities in each role.

Figurehead

Figureheads represent their teams. If you need to improve or build confidence in this area, start with your image, behavior, and reputation. Cultivate humility and empathy, learn how to set a good example at work, and think about how to be a good role model.

Leader

This is the role you probably spend most of your time fulfilling. To improve here, start by taking our quiz, How Good Are Your Leadership Skills? This will give you a thorough understanding of your current abilities.

Next, learn how to be an authentic leader, so your team will respect you. Also, focus on improving your emotional intelligence – this is an important skill for being an effective leader.

Liaison

To improve your liaison skills, work on your professional networking techniques. You may also like to take our Bite-Sized Training course on Networking Skills.

Monitor

To improve here, learn how to gather information effectively and overcome information overload. Also, use effective reading strategies, so that you can process material quickly and thoroughly, and learn how to keep up-to-date with industry news.

Disseminator

To be a good disseminator you need to know how to share information and outside views effectively, which means that good communication skills are vital.

Learn how to share organizational information with Team Briefings. Next, focus on improving your writing skills. You might also want to take our communication skills quiz, to find out where else you can improve.

Spokesperson

To be effective in this role, make sure that you know how to represent your organization at a conference. You may also want to read our articles on delivering great presentations and working with the media (if applicable to your role).

Entrepreneur

To improve here, build on your change management skills, and learn what not to do when implementing change in your organization. You'll also need to work on your problem solving and creativity skills, so that you can come up with new ideas, and implement them successfully.

Disturbance Handler

In this role, you need to excel at conflict resolution and know how to handle team conflict. It's also helpful to be able to manage emotion in your team.

Resource Allocator

To improve as a resource allocator, learn how to manage a budget, cut costs, and prioritize, so that you can make the best use of your resources. You can also use VRIO Analysis to learn how to get the best results from the resources available to you.

Negotiator

Improve your negotiation skills by learning about Win-Win Negotiation and Distributive Bargaining.

You might also want to read our article on role-playing – this technique can help you prepare for difficult negotiations.

Mintzberg's 10 Management Roles model sets out the essential roles that managers play. These are:

1. Figurehead.
2. Leader.
3. Liaison.
4. Monitor.
5. Disseminator.
6. Spokesperson.
7. Entrepreneur.
8. Disturbance Handler.
9. Resource Allocator.
10. Negotiator.

You can apply Mintzberg's 10 Management Roles model by using it as a frame of reference when you want to develop your management skills. Work on the roles that you fulfill most often as a priority, but remember that you won't necessarily fulfill every role as part of your job.

The role of a manager is a set of behaviors that are associated with the task of managing. Using these roles, managers accomplish the basic functions of management just discussed: planning and strategizing, organizing, controlling, and leading and developing employees. Mintzberg was one of the first and most enduring writers to describe the role of the manager. He observed what managers did during the day by shadowing them. He grouped the roles into three categories: interpersonal roles, informational roles, and decisional roles.To accomplish objectives, managers use this category for generating, receiving, or sharing knowledge with employees and colleagues at higher levels. Managers become sources of information concerning a variety of organizational issues due to their interpersonal contacts. As a manager, you perform the following three roles in information processing:

Monitor 

• As a manager, you must constantly scan your environment for information, interact with your liaison contacts and subordinates, and receive unsolicited information from a variety of sources.In this role, you look for relevant changes in the environment by regularly finding information about your organization and industry. In addition to monitoring their productivity, you should also monitor their health.
• Managers constantly monitor and scan the environment, both internal and external, collecting and studying information about their organization and the outside environment that affects it. Several methods can be used to do this, including reading reports and periodicals, contacting liaison contacts, and hearing gossip, hearsay, and speculation.
• As a monitor, you are responsible for discovering information about your organization, such as potentially impactful industry changes. You conduct both internal and external research. The next step is to analyze the information gathered to identify and resolve any potential issues. Besides monitoring the organization’s operations, monitoring responsibilities include identifying opportunities for improvement.
• Example: To improve your existing product line, you can use customer feedback. As well as monitoring industry trends, your company needs to keep track of products launched by competitors and regulatory changes it may have to follow. Understanding what is happening in your industry helps you stay competitive and meet business standards.

Disseminator

• Managers who disseminate information pass some of their privileged information to subordinates who otherwise would not have access to it. Here you can communicate potentially useful information to your colleagues and your team.
• Managers should communicate information regarding changes in policies or other matters to their subordinates, their peers, and other members of the organization. Memoranda, telephone calls, individual meetings, and group meetings can be used for this purpose.
• A disseminator receives messages from internal and external sources, which he or she relays to the appropriate individuals. These messages can be transmitted both verbally and in writing. The information here is usually valuable or otherwise important to your organization or may provide guidance on tasks your employees need to complete.
• Example: You may have developed a design proposal for a new product after researching industry trends. This proposal would then be presented to upper management for approval and distributed to your employees as well. This allows your employees to familiarize themselves with the project, and you can assign tasks accordingly.

Spokesman 

• Managers are responsible for providing information and satisfying a variety of groups and individuals within the organization. He advises shareholders on financial results, reassures consumers about the company’s social responsibilities, and assures the government that the organization is following the law.
• Organizations are represented by their managers. This role requires you to communicate information about your organization and its goals to people outside your organization. Managers should act as representatives of their units in terms of either communicating relevant information to people outside their units or making demands on their behalf. Whether it be the company’s president addressing a lobby to advocate for an organization’s cause or an engineer suggesting a product modification to a supplier.
• The spokesperson is responsible for representing the organization in front of external stakeholders and conveying information, such as goals and policies. It is possible that you will need to represent your team during internal meetings and events if you work for a large corporation. It may be necessary in this situation for you to provide insight into your team’s performance and goals to upper management or other departments.
• Example: Attending the annual shareholder’s meeting may be part of your responsibilities as spokesperson. During this meeting, you can talk about quantifiable results or achievements your team achieved that year, such as sales results. In addition, you may discuss the strategic goals that you hope to attain within the next year.

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