The difference between a Manager and a Leader Can be a Life-or-Death Situation

As I look back on the start of my career as an Engineer, I cannot help but dwell on my experiences as a technician and remember the time I almost died due to being under a person whom I at best call a medium mid-level manager. I was working for a company called Eurotherm in Virginia. It was one of my first jobs, but fortunately, it was not my last job. Let me not go through all of the minutiae of my experiences there, but let me say that I was not the model employee. I would incorrectly calibrate systems, I would fall asleep in meetings, and I would at times appear not to be paying attention to details when being told, how to perform a task. You know all of the signs of a bad employee. So, let’s just say after some time I was fired from Eurotherm by my manager.

Now, to some that read or hear this story, they assume the correct action was taken, when dealing with a bad employee. However, what was done, was done by a manager. Now let me tell you how a leader handled this issue. A few months after being fired from Eurotherm I found a job at a small Company partnered with Motorola doing Radio and RADAR systems calibration. The same thing occurred there, but my manager handled it differently. She noticed that I would fall asleep as soon I sat down and that there was no drifting off, I would go from awake to asleep, she also noticed that I would readjust the viewer screen when calibrating devices. One day she invited me into her office and asked me some simple questions about my eating habits, she chuckled and told me to stop work for the day and go to the doctor. It was the best advice that I would ever receive because it was at that time that I was diagnosed as a diabetic. There have been times since that day that I have given in to sugar cravings, but at least I know how to deal with that now.

The manager at Eurotherm just looked at my actions and made a decision based on what he saw, that was his job. I do not begrudge him for being a manager. However, the leader was able to look past making a point, to see or at least trying to see what was going on with her employee. That is why one of the questions I ask when interviewing a company to work for is “Do you hire managers or do you hire leaders?” I have within myself determined never to work for a company that hires managers, I only work for leaders. That may sound bad, but I have been in the field of Technology and Engineering for 32 years and I can with confidence say that working for a manager is far different from working for a leader. Managers get the job done from afar with little personal contact with their employees. Leaders on the other hand get the job done by understanding their employees and taking the time to understand the causes of actions.

My experiences have been of great service to me when teaching, now that I am a Professor of Computer Science and Information Technology. The fact is working for a manager is what most people do, they get used to Transactional Management and getting rewarded or punished for things that might or might not be under their control and that is OK if you intend on spending the rest of your career on a hamster wheel.  What I have learned and how I lead is through Transformational Leadership which has the goal of allowing an employee or student to grow and to develop skill sets that allow them to one day if they choose to become managers themselves. Which is best? It depends on what the company’s goals and objectives are and how you fit into them. However, which one you choose to work for is your choice and your choice alone.