COMM 210

Contemporary Business Thinking

Class 8
Managers, Leadership,
and Causal Claims
 Objectives for Today

 Describe the various roles of a manager

 Describe the misconceptions and realities of being a
manager
 New critical thinking skill: Causal claim
Your experience with managers
 Individual reflection
 Who was your best supervisor?
 What made them the best?
 Who was your worst supervisor?
 What made them the worst?
Henry Mintzberg
Cleghorn Professor
of Management
Studies
at McGill University
“Business Guru”
of Canadian origin
Mintzberg’s Manager’s Roles
What do managers do?

Managers plan, The manager’s job can be

organize, coordinate & described in terms of
control various ‘’roles’’, or
organized set of
behaviours identified with
a position
 Mintzberg’s Manager’s Roles

Formal
authority
Information
Information

ts al
Ma the

ac n
in

nt rso
jor uni

co rpe
ro t

te
le

In
Managerial Roles
1. Figurehead: Ceremonial duties-> President meets visiting dignitaries,
manager attends the wedding of a subordinate,…

2. Leader: Motivate and encourage, train and hire

3. Liaison: Link with peers and others outside the organization
4. Monitor: Scanning the environment that can have an impact on the firm

5. Disseminator: Pass on some relevant information to subordinates

6. Spokesperson: Send some information to those outside the unit

7. Entrepreneur: Seeks to improve the unit; adapt to changing conditions in the
environment

8. Disturbance-handler: Responding to pressures and change outside the

manager’s control (e.g. a strike)

9. Resource-allocator: Decide on who gets what, including access to the manager’s

time

10. Negotiator: Negotiating with customers, suppliers, employees etc…

Managerial Skills

Mintzberg’s description of managerial work suggests a

number of important managerial skills, e.g.,
Developing peer relationships
Carrying out negotiations
Motivating subordinates
Resolving conflicts
Establishing information networks
Disseminating the information
Making decisions (in conditions of extreme ambiguity)
Allocationg resources.
etc.
 Mintzberg Interview

An interview with Henry Mintzberg

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/video/pure-managing/articl
e1288545/
Critical Thinking
Skills:
Causal
Claims
Sharpen your Analytical Skills
 Causal Claims

 Many of the claims made are classified as causal

claims.

 Cause and effect relationship

 Certain events or factors (causes) are responsible for

bringing about events or situations (effects)

 Causal claims help us make sense of the world around

us
 Rival Causes

 Causal explanation = Author’s interpretation of cause

& effect relationships
 Rival causes: The same evidence can be consistent
with different interpretations
 3 types of rival causes related to:
 Differences between groups
 Association of characteristics
 Reverse causation?
 Effect of 3rd variable?
 The post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy
<After this> <Therefore> <Because of this>
 Take up a sport, Oxygen
magazine advises its readers.
“Each has its own unique
health benefits. For example, a
recent Swedish study found
that golfers
golferslive
liveabout
aboutfive
five
years longerthan
years longer thanthe
therest
rest
of of
the population.”
the population.”
Globe & Mail, 2008

What is the causal assumption?

What may be an alternative cause?
(Hint: How do golfers differ from rest of population?
Are there other differences not accounted for?)

Critique based on
differences between groups
 Office clutter!
A recent UK research study
found that 25% of workers
had been formally
reprimanded for clutter.
Messy workspaces were
found to
found to increase
increase
employees’ stress
employees’ stress levels.
levels.

What is the causal assumption?

What might be a plausible alternative cause?
Hint: (A  B or B  A? Third variable?)

Critique based on
reverse Causation, or 3rd variable
Do wind farms cause people to become sick?
Health problems increased
near some wind farms. It was
discovered that activists
activistshad
had
distributed health-warning
distributed health-warning
leaflets tocommunities
leaflets to communitiesnear
near
these farms. In communities
near windfarms where no
warning leaflets had been
distributed, the frequency of
health problems diddid not
not
change
change
What is the causal assumption?
What may be an alternative cause?
(Hint: What else happened at the same time?)
Post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy