Is your organization striving to create better managers? Or are you striving to create better leaders? Are they one in the same? Before you answer these questions, consider this point: You manage things; you lead people.

Most people crave to be led -- but don't want to be managed. If on top of that they can be involved in a worthy cause, be part of a winning team, feel great about the person they report to, and feel great about themselves, they are literally in work heaven.

With the focus now in creating better leaders, the next question is: How? I believe that becoming a more effective leader depends on one''s ability to look at current situations from different angles, to apply a new mode of thinking, to challenge the norm, to look at what others are doing and do something different.

To illustrate my point, the following chart highlights the differences between management and Contrarian Leadership:

Managers rely on the "tried and true" vs. Contrarian Leaders that experiment with Contrarian approaches Following this pattern, the characteristics of the two, contrasted, are:

• Maintain vs. Develop

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• Control vs. Trust

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• Direct vs. Inspire

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• Administer vs. Innovate

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• Strategy driven vs. Philosophy driven

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• Rely on position power vs. Empower

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• Structure/system focus vs. People focus

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• Cope with complexity vs. Embrace change

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• Focus on the bottom line vs. Focus on employee and customer satisfaction

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• Do things right vs. Do the right things right

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As this list shows, the qualities that Contrarian leaders embody enable them to instill within their organization an entrepreneurial, empowered culture that gives employees the license to act.