Henry Mintzberg Executive Summary

HENRY MINTZBERG EXECUTIVE SUMMARY By Jeff Struecker

Henry Mintzberg describes himself as on a mission to reform management education. He has been referred to as “the world’s premiere management thinker”. Mintzberg is actively challenging the business and academic world on their views of leadership, management and management development. He refers to himself as someone who is on a journey to the world of management. He has spoken before a broad range of audiences around the world.

Education and Academics

He completed his Masters of Science degree in Management in 1965 and earned a Doctorate of

Philosophy from the Sloan School of Management at Massachusetts Institute of Technology

(MIT) in 1968. He also received a Bachelor’s of Engineering Degree from McGill University in

Montreal, Quebec. In 2011 he was named number 30 on the Thinker’s 50 List.

Books And Articles

Mintzberg is the author or coauthor of fifteen books and over one hundred and fifty articles. He is quoted over four thousand times on the Web of Science’s list of “Worlds Most Cited and

Influential Researchers.” His doctorial dissertation was published as The Nature of Managerial

Work in 1973 and started a long and successful career as a scholar and author.

His books and articles often focus on the topics of leadership and management. Much of his research has to do with planning, strategy, organizational structure and the education process for leaders and managers.

1 Lately he has been publishing management articles aimed at the political debates in

Canada and the United States. He has released articles concerning the economic and credit crisis in North America, the big bonuses of CEOs, and discussion on the health-care debate.

Mintzberg’s theology and philosophy is hard to pin down. Much of his work is intensely pragmatic. He tends to focus on what is working rather than on what should be working. His writings often argue for high standards of moral responsibility for leaders and managers.

Current Management Initiatives

Mintzberg is involved with several management and leadership organizations around the world.

He is currently serving as a member and former president of the Strategic Management Society.

He also governs the Executive Institute and the International Masters for Health Leadership

(I.M.H.L.). With Phil LeNir, he owns Coaching Ourselves International, a private company using his alternative approach for management development directly in the workplace. He is currently trying to help businesses and government agencies in North America view the corporations as communities.

Resources

There is a host of information about him online. He routinely writes for Harvard Business

Review and other scholarly journals on the areas of leadership and management. His website is a helpful resource. It lists all of his book and articles by name and offers a brief description of each.

Mintzberg has spoken all over the world to a variety of civic, government, military and private organization as well and many colleges and universities. He is considered by some to be the world’s modern management guru.