Understanding Mintzberg's Leadership Theory

This assignment delves into Henry Mintzberg's influential leadership theory. It examines his concepts of information, people, and action phases in organizational work, highlighting the role of confidence and superficiality in leadership. The discussion also includes critiques of Mintzberg's theory from scholars like Warren Bennis, emphasizing the distinct roles of leaders and managers. The assignment encourages critical analysis of Mintzberg's contributions to understanding leadership in modern organizations.

Running head: LEADERSHIP
Leadership
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

1LEADERSHIP
It is an obvious fact that leadership is an inspirational activity. After learning about
leadership theory, the first thing that came to me mind is that leaders are also human and we are
the ones that select our leader, they never come in our way. After learning about his theory one
thing that is clear to me is that the leaders or managers do not always plan or coordinate but they
have huge burden of task to complete and when an individual shows up their abilities to work on
many task at a time only then they are selected as leaders. Every individual has a different
perspective regarding leadership (Daft 2014). This is because of their view about how a
management must perform. Similarly, there is a hidden leadership skill among every person, it
just takes the right person or time to reveal it. In this context, my leadership skill involves
inspiration and management skill. I have learnt through Mintzberg’s leadership theory that being
a manager is different from being a leader. A manager can deny his managerial role but when a
leader fails to manage something it turns worse. My leadership skills tell me to be good at the
managing role and not only focus on being a leader. However, I have also learnt that I need to
play the role of both leader and manager in order to make the role effective one. As a leader, I
have learnt different things about leadership, which are, finding solutions and believing on my
ability, being able to handle all the management tantrums with dedication, experience and
knowledge. I also have emphasized on the point while determining my ability that it is obvious
that I will have flaws and I will make mistakes even if I try to make up everything as I am a
human and even as a leader I cannot be perfect. I can be selected as a proficient leader only after
I am observed at work, hence I have to perform well as an employee first, and then I will be
selected a leader. I have also known that to be a proper leader I will have to focus on developing
my own leadership skill with the help of my own experience. For a leader the most important
point is learning to develop and adapt development. Without developing the skills, no one will be

2LEADERSHIP
able to achieve the level of leadership. Leadership depends on how we lead and manage a
situation or people. It is obvious that being a leader we get to face a lot of challenges and
working on those challenge is very important to prove ourselves. The challenges bring the best
out of us and let us develop our leadership skill in a better way. Another important key point,
which is needed to acquire the position of a leader, is patience. A leader has many roles to
perform hence they need to have the maximum amount of patience so that they can turn
themselves to a better leader (DuBrin 2015).
Mintzberg’s leadership theory is clearly dependant on the observation of leaders. He has
identified that every individual have different opinions about leadership. Mintzberg was the first
person to note that the managers do not always have the attitude to plan and coordinate in
everything instead the part they perform is very much tough. According to him, a leader has
plenty of roles to play and hence their job is very crucial. Criticizing Mintzberg’s theory is tough
but many famous person have done the job and among them one is Warren Bennis (1993) said
that. “A leader is not simply someone who experiences the personal exhilaration of being in
charge. A leader is someone whose actions have the most profound consequences on other
people's lives, for better or for worse, sometimes forever and ever." Discussing this it can be
said that his thoughts were different from that of Mintzberg’s. According to Mintzberg, leader
and manager are either the same person or their have the same role to play. Nevertheless, Warren
clearly criticized the fact and said that ‘leader’ and ‘manager’ have different role to play and are
different persons (Van Wart 2014). Though Mintzberg’s leadership theory is encouraging still
there are many people who haves criticized and questioned the existence of the theory. While
defining leadership, one name that must be taken is of Mintzberg. He was the one to discuss
leadership as a job done by humans and not superheroes. His leadership theory states that there

3LEADERSHIP
are three ways in which organizational work is done. The three phases are information, people
and action. Through his theory, it was made clear that the leaders and managers have a lot of
time by controlling the challenges rather than working on any other stuff (Mintzberg et al 2017).
The role of leader is not always managing things or finding solutions for problems. The leaders
need to present themselves in a confident role just to be sure that they have chosen the required
solution and are ready to face the consequences (Lussier and Achua 2015). According to
Mintzberg, “…managers often have to feign confidence. For reasonably modest managers,
this can be difficult enough; for the supremely confident, it may not be difficult at all, just
catastrophic.” According to him the leaders must have superficiality. While hiring an employee
or training and guiding someone, it is important for the leaders to consider that they are dung
their job well and that is what makes them the leaders. Leadership is all about efficiency,
managerial skills, patience and knowledge, which complies with each other and makes a person a
proper leader (Kollenscher, Popper and Ronen 2016). Leaders are also human being and they do
not have any super power of controlling or managing things. They only have the power to make
things work properly and in a certain way. They have the power of managing a situation with
dedication and skill. Leaders always manage an internal tension and try to provide the best to be
efficient enough for the role (Alimo‐Metcalfe 2013).

4LEADERSHIP
Reference:
Alimo‐Metcalfe, B., 2013. A critical review of leadership theory. The Wiley-Blackwell
handbook of the psychology of leadership, change, and organizational development, pp.13-47.
Daft, R.L., 2014. The leadership experience. Cengage Learning.
DuBrin, A.J., 2015. Leadership: Research findings, practice, and skills. Nelson Education.
Jacobs, S.M.A. and Kushner, S.R., 2017. How Can You Become the Boss?: From Personal
Mastery to Organizational Transformation. Rowman & Littlefield.
Kollenscher, E., Popper, M. and Ronen, B., 2016. Value-creating organizational
leadership. Journal of Management & Organization, pp.1-21.
Lussier, R.N. and Achua, C.F., 2015. Leadership: Theory, application, & skill development.
Nelson Education.
Mintzberg, H., Mintzberg, H., Caldwell, C. and Caldwell, C., 2017.
Leadership,“communityship,” and “the good folk”. International Journal of Public
Leadership, 13(1), pp.5-8.
Van Wart, M., 2014. Dynamics of leadership in public service: Theory and practice. Routledge.