'An effective manager must perform all of Mintzberg's roles of management.' Do you agree with this statement? Justify your view.

Mark scheme

Marking points from the official mark scheme (Feb/Mar 2019). The mark or mark type is shown in brackets.

1. Mintzberg's Management Roles cover ten tasks and responsibilities that a manager may need to perform. These are divided up into three categories: Interpersonal roles: include: figurehead (ceremonial, legal, inspiration, authority), leader and liaison (networking, internal and external communication).
2. Informational roles: include: monitor (business environment and team), disseminator (useful information) and spokesperson (externally).
3. Decisional roles: include: entrepreneur (problem solving, idea generation), disturbance handler (problems and disputes), resource allocator (factors of production), and negotiator.
4. Examples with explanation of how the various tasks which managers carry out might fall into these three categories.
5. Consideration that not all managers will have sufficient responsibility to use all 10 elements. Perhaps senior managers are more likely to use them all.
6. Manager's role is often considered to be organising, planning, staffing, directing and controlling which has some overlap with Mintzberg's roles.
7. To be effective manager's personality and style of leadership need to be considered in the context of their role.
8. Managers need many skills to be effective, including technical and time management skills not mentioned by Mintzberg.
9. Effectiveness of any manager depends on a complex set of skills and styles being used appropriately in a wide range of different tasks which may be routine or non-routine and may depend on the different roles and responsibilities of the manager and their position in the hierarchy.