"Leadership is like the Abominable Snowman, whose foot prints are everywhere, but who is nowhere to be seen." Warren Bennis

In their book Leaders authors Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus describe some of the characteristics that make managers different from leaders. Managers deal with problem solving. Usually, a manager's focus is reactionary. He or she deals with problems as they arise. Leaders, on the other hand, discover problems. Problem finding in an organization has to do with the identification of a new direction or a new vision. It looks beyond the current daily crises to the discovery of something beyond the every day order of things. It brings to light undercurrents and perceives situations that have not risen to the surface. Leaders look for trouble well before it has a chance to happen.

Leaders challenge the old conventions. They care about the "know-why" rather than the "know-how." Like a scientist doing research, leaders often believe that knowing the right questions is often more important than knowing the answers. Why does the organization do this or that? Why must the solution to the problem be such-and-such? If an organization can look forward to what questions will be important in the future, managers will be more able to make decisions today that will lead them toward finding the solutions to the future. Let the managers keep the ship on safe course, let leaders steer the ship into the future.

CONSIDER THIS: Forget about the daily problems for a moment. What are the important questions you need to be asking? Are you on the leading edge of your organization's growth, anticipating what comes next?