We've all sat in on educational sessions at trade shows or association meetings that are led by business consultants. These are the sessions where you have to work -- fill out a chart, take a little test, do some sort of exercise (mental or physical, right Jim Paluch?) that helps clarify a situation you face in day-to-day operations.

I don't run a landscape or lawn care company but I always fill in the charts and take the tests too because I participate in a business here -- the business of publishing a magazine -- and I pick up a lot of fundamentals for my job from the Green Industry.

Recently I sat in on one of the best "business-building" sessions I've ever encountered that had some real-world applications. This one really stuck with me.

Led by Kevin Block of ILT Vignocchi, the session covered, in part, what it means to be a manager vs. what it means to be a leader, and how any business needs both to really make a go of it.

A leader, Block said, asks, "What do I want to achieve?" The direction a leader takes is an act, like creativity.

A manager executes. Management is a role, a set of responsibilities.

"Leadership can be shown by all and can shift from one person to another in any context," Block said. "In a small business especially, managers must emerge as leaders when appropriate."

Sound simple? It is simple, and I'm willing to bet this sticks with you like it did for me. Take a look around. Identify the managers. Identify the leaders. Are they the people you might expect to fit those roles?

How do you fit within those roles?

Check out this chart. We filled it in as part of the session:

Interesting, huh? I think so too.

"Part of leadership is coming up with innovative ideas you haven't used before," Block told the group. "Not ideas that nobody has ever used, but ones you haven't used in your company."

Pretty simple. I like it.