Henry Mintzberg Quotes

Leadership, like swimming, cannot be learned by reading about it.

This obsession with leadership ... It's not neutral; it's American, this idea of the heroic leader who comes in on a white horse to save the day. I think it's killing American companies.

An enterprise is a community of human beings, not a collection of "human resources".

We're all flawed, but basically, effective managers are people whose flaws are not fatal under the circumstances. Maybe the best managers are simply ordinary, healthy people who aren't too screwed up.

Anecdotal data is not incidental to theory development at all, but an essential part of it

Corporations are social institutions. If they don't serve society, they have no business existing

It is time to recognize conventional MBA programs for what they are - or else to close them down. They are specialized training in the functions of business, not general educating in the practice of management.

The real challenge in crafting strategy lies in detecting subtle discontinuities that may undermine a business in the future. And for that there is no technique, no program, just a sharp mind in touch with the situation.

When the world is predictable you need smart people.
When the world is unpredictable you need adaptable people.

The idea that you can take smart but inexperienced 25-year-olds who never managed anything and turn them into effective managers via two years of classroom training is ludicrous.

Why does every generation have to think that he lives in the period with the greatest turbulence?

Strategies grow initially like weeds in a garden, they are not cultivated like tomatoes in a hothouse.

Learning is not doing; it is reflecting on doing.

To 'turn around' is to end up facing the same way. Maybe that is the problem, all the turning organizations around.

What we call a financial crisis is really at its core a crisis of management, and not just a crisis of management, but a crisis of management culture ... In other words, what you had is a detachment of people who know the business from people who are running the business.

Five coordinating mechanisms seem to explain the fundamental ways in which organizations coordinate their work: mutual adjustment, direct supervision, standardization of work processes, standardization of work outputs, and standardization of worker skills.

That is the trouble with flying: We always have to return to airports. Thank of how much fun flying would be if we didn't have to return to airports.

Strategic planning is not strategic thinking. Indeed, strategic planning often spoils strategic thinking, causing managers to confuse real vision with the manipulation of numbers.

Basically, managing is about influencing action. Managing is about helping organizations and units to get things done, which means action. Sometimes, managers manage actions directly. They fight fires. They manage projects. They negotiate contracts.

The great myth is the manager as orchestra conductor. It's this idea of standing on a pedestal and you wave your baton and accounting comes in, and you wave it somewhere else and marketing chimes in with accounting, and they all sound very glorious. But management is more like orchestra conducting during rehearsals, when everything is going wrong.

An unsuccessful manager blames failure on his obligations; the effective manager turns them to his own advantage. A speech is a chance to lobby ... a visit to an important customer a chance to extract trade information.

Organizations should be built and managers should be functioning so people can be naturally empowered. If someone's doing their job, if someone's working in one of your warehouses, say, they should know their job better than anybody. They don't need to be 'empowered,' but encouraged and left alone to be able to do what they know best.

Everyone is against micro managing but macro managing means you're working at the big picture but don't know the details.

Organizations are communities of human beings, not collections of human resources

My feeling about executive bonuses is that any candidate for a chief executive job who even raises the issue of bonuses should be dismissed out of hand.

While hard data may inform the intellect, it is largely soft data that generates wisdom.

An obsession with control generally seems to reflect a fear of uncertainty.

If the private sectors are about markets and the public sectors are about governments, then the plural sector is about communities.

Management is a curious phenomenon. It is generously paid, enormously influential, and significantly devoid of common sense

If you ask managers what they do, they will most likely tell you that they plan, organise, co-ordinate and control. Then watch what they do. Don't be surprised if you can't relate what you see to those four words.

So technologies, whether it is a telephone or an iPhone, computers in general or automobiles, television even, all individualize us. We all sit in front of our iPhones and communicating but are we really communicating?

Data don't generate theory - only researchers do that.

Strategy-making is an immensely complex process involving the most sophisticated, subtle, and at times subconscious of human cognitive and social processes.

No job is more vital to our society than that of the manager. It is the manager who determines whether our social institutions serve us well or whether they squander our talents and resources.

Companies are communities. There's a spirit of working together. Communities are not a place where a few people allow themselves to be singled out as solely responsible for success.

Management and leadership are not separate spheres. The two skills work together in the larger realm of communityship.

Empowerment is what managers do to people. Engagement is what managers do with people.

Most of the time, strategies should not be formulating strategy at all; they should be getting on with implementing strategies they already have.

Management is, above all, a practice where art, science, and craft meet