Mintzberg: Management effectiveness can only be judged in context
Henry Mintzberg is one of my favorite management thinkers. He, unlike most writers on management, identifies how complicated, situational, and context-specific “great management” is.
In Simply Managing, he writes:
“The effectiveness of a manager can only be judged in context … Managers are not effective; matches are effective. There is no such thing as a good husband or good wife, only a good couple. And so it is with managers and their units. There may be people who fail in all managerial jobs, but there are none who can succeed in all of them. Success depends on the match between the person and the context, at the time, for a time.”
This reality makes it so difficult to judge the effectiveness of managers –– and management training programs –– much to the frustration of senior executives and learning & development teams. But it’s not impossible.
This reality also speaks to the need for situation-specific training resources, like performance support for managers.
What do you think about judging management in context?
Other posts on Prof. Henry Mintzberg’s work:
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