You are about to embark on a career that determines the future of society. Every failure and every success in academia, government, or industry can be traced to a manager’s performance. The management creed places final responsibility and accountability for results on the manager. Henry Mintzberg reminds us that:
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.
Although Mintzberg made that statement in relation to upper management it applies equally if not more importantly at the entry and developmental management levels. Is Mintzberg placing too much emphasis on the role of the manager in society? Certainly not, if we accept the premise that managers are responsible for achieving results. A cursory review of the daily media gives many examples of managers who failed in their responsibilities with significant negative consequences to the organization’s stakeholders and to society. An organization’s success depends on how its resources, infrastructure, and culture are managed: its identity and its standing in the world community are built from the bottom up. The integration of activities throughout the organization and within each of the organizational subunits determines the organization’s future. How we fulfill Mintzberg’s challenge depends on how we perceive the function of managing.