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Developing
Organizational
Leadership
Capabilities
Mintzbergs Refreshing
View of Leadership
Written by
David Creelman
Sponsored by
www.hr.com | 1-877-472-6648
Research paper
Most of what we read about leadership is inspirational. Is this a good thing? Might we benefit
from a realistic view of leadership instead? The work of Dr. Henry Mintzberg provides a refreshing
view of leaders as everyday people, not heroes. Mintzbergs research has implications for how
we select and develop leaders, and just as importantly dispels a mythic view of leadership that
can get in our way.
A Model of Managing
If leaders are managers and vice versa, what are the components of the role? Mintzberg wraps
it up neatly in Figure 1 below. There are three planes of work: information, people and action.
Within each plane the focus may be into the unit, into the rest of the organization or outside
the organization.
1 All quotes are from Mintzberg, Henry. Managing. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2009
www.hr.com | 1-877-472-6648
Research paper
Developing
Organizational
Leadership
Capabilities
The model provokes the image of someone juggling three different types of balls for three
different audiencesor else a puppet pulled in nine directions at once. That is indeed the role of
a leader; part juggler, part puppet and without doubt in the center of organizational work. We
may despair that managers spend so much time fighting fires rather than preventing them, but
a look at the competing demands implied in the model shows that fighting fires is an inevitable
part of the job.
Mintzberg is fond of collecting lists of traits that good leaders are supposed to have. Combine
a few of these lists and you quickly realize that it is a completely unrealistic list of demands.
Looking back at the model in Figure 1, it is no surprise we have a hard time finding people
who are intelligent with information, pragmatic with people and adept at action. Mintzberg
contends that all real managers are flawed and thats okay.
Rather than seeing leadership as a rarefied quality found in a few individuals, we can see
management as an everyday practice performed by imperfect humans who have been selected
and developed to do a reasonably good job at this difficult role.
Research paper
Mintzberg also points out that while we forever tell managers they must delegate, How do
you delegate when so much of the relevant information is personal, oral and often privileged?
As one thinks of more conundrums they tend to blend together into our picture of the juggler
or puppet, rushing from thing to thing, sometimes dropping a ball and yet somehow able, for
the most part, to keep the demands balanced and get the work done.
Research paper
Developing
Organizational
Leadership
Capabilities
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