Once upon a time (early on in my career) a co-worker of mine and I were having a discussion on leaders and managers and what the differences between the two were. Now, my co-worker had a military background (well, he went to VMI), so his explanation may sound a bit skewed towards the military, but for the most part, it carries over into the business world as well (it should, considering we were working at UUNet at the time and he was dead on in his explanation).

His explanation was very simple; the difference he said, was that a manager always does things the right way and a leader always does the right thing. I thought about it for a second, and then it hit me, it totally made sense. Now I am not advocating breaking rules and not following processes, they are there for a reason. However, there are certain times that although following the rules and processes is the right way to do things, the net result may not be the right thing. There are times when you need to cast aside the rules and processes and do what is in the best interest of the team, product, company, whatever it is.

Leaders are able to recognize when this needs to happen and they can react to it. They have a sense for knowing when things need to bend, when doing the right thing means breaking the rules, as long as the net result is the right thing. This is not to say that managers do not do this, because after all, managers are looked at as leaders (at least in my experiences in the business world), but not all managers are leaders (and that is OK). My belief is that leaders are born and not made, that you either have it or you do not, but I am not convinced that it cannot be learned through experiences. There are times where someone rises to the occasion and leads, when prior to that they had been a contributor. Sometimes it takes a certain situation to bring out the leader in you.

So the next time you are in a situation where you may question doing things the right way or doing the right thing, what will you do?