Your answer could determine your success. Are you a leader or manager? Your answer could determine how successful you will be in getting results from your people. I was fresh out of college, and had finally landed my first real manager job as an assistant manager for what was then a little-known company called PetSmart. It was a busy day, and the parking lot was full of shopping carts. I approached our stock clerk and politely asked him to go retrieve the carts, to which he immediately informed me he was tired of walking out to the parking lot, and that he was not going to go get the carts. What do you think I did? If you thought I immediately fired him or sent him home for insubordination, sorry, you are wrong. I immediately raised my voice, and I asked him again to get the shopping carts. He, in turn, got upset and asked me to "make him." So, I did what any upstanding manager would do and put up both my fists and challenged him to a fight. So, there I was, in the middle of aisle 10 surrounded by bags of Science Diet dog food with the pet turtles staring at me as I challenged my employee to a fist fight. Somehow, I must have fallen asleep in the management class about how to get results out of people. Or maybe I woke up on the wrong side of the bed. In either case, I was not acting like a manager - certainly not a leader.
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