Liz Wiseman believes that leaders can either diminish or multiply the intelligence and capabilities of the people around them. I picked up Multipliers to explore Liz’s practical strategies for leaders to leverage their organization’s full capability.

• Effective leadership lies in being a 'genius maker,' not merely a genius. Leaders should shift from a mindset of competition and superiority to one of collaboration and empowerment, where the true measure of success is how much they can elevate those around them.
  • Some leaders seemed to drain intelligence and capability out of the people around them. Their focus on their own intelligence and their resolve to be the smartest person in the room had a diminishing effect on everyone else.
  • Other leaders understood that the person sitting at the apex of the intelligence hierarchy is the genius maker, not the genius.
  • OBSERVATION: This type of behavior relates closely to the “victor mindset,” which often embodies a competitive approach where the individual strives to be the best, sometimes at the expense of others. This behavior stems from a desire to “win” in every situation, asserting their superiority and maintaining control. While they focus on their own intellect and achievements, they stifle the contributions and growth of others.
  • It isn’t how much you know that matters. What matters is how much access have to what other people know. It isn’t just how intelligent your team members are; it is how much of that intelligence you can draw out and put to use.
  • Multipliers get more from their people because they are leaders who look beyond their own genius and focus their energy on extracting and extending the genius of others.
  • They think like one manager we interviewed who takes stock of her team members by asking herself, “In what way is this person smart?” In answering this question, she finds colorful capabilities often hidden just below the surface. Instead of writing people off as not worth her time, she is able to ask, “What could be done to develop and grow these capabilities?”
  • IMPORTANT: Leaders must transcend the victor mindset, recognizing that true success is measured not by the accolades of one but by the achievements of the entire team. This belief has said to enable humans to prosper and it is evident in literature of cultural evolution and anthropological research on human societies.
  • "It’s not that these Multipliers shrink so that others can be big. It’s that they play in a way that invites others to play big too.”
    • IMPORTANT: Many leaders misconstrue empowerment. They often equate it with relinquishing their own influence or authority, believing they must diminish their role to allow others to take the spotlight.
• THE TALENT MAGNET. Talent Magnets create a powerful force that attracts talent and then accelerates the growth of intelligence and capability in others, as well as themselves. In contrast, empire builders seek only to bolster personal power and image.
  • Appreciate all kinds of genius.
  • Find people’s native genius. A native genius is something that people do, not only exceptionally well, but absolutely naturally. They do it easily (without extra effort) and freely (without condition).
  • Utilize people to their fullest by 1) connecting them with opportunities and 2) shining a spotlight on them.
    • Mitt asked questions like “What is the next challenge for you? What would be a stretch assignment?”
    • A favorite question was “What is getting in the way of your being successful?”
  • Remove the Prima Donnas.
  • Liz observed that Empire Builders (opposites of Talent Magnets) accumulate talent not to empower them but to bolster their own image of intelligence and power.
    • “Empire Builders create a vicious cycle of decline. Talent recruited into their organization soon becomes disengaged and goes stale. The cycle of decline begins much like the cycle of attraction (which is why it is easy to be deceived by Diminishers.) Empire Builders seek to surround themselves with A players. But, unlike Talent Magnets, they accumulate talent to appear smarter and more powerful. The leader glosses over the real genius of the people while placing them into boxes on the org chart. The A players have limited impact and start to look more like A- or B+. They fail to get noticed for their work, and they lose intellectual confidence. They begin to recede into the shadow of the Empire Builder. Their value in the job market drops and opportunities begin to evaporate.”
• THE LIBERATOR. Liberators create environments where truth, open dialogue and acceptance of mistakes are paramount. They understand that true progress comes from creating space for others to contribute freely. This is the opposite of authoritarian leaders who control and intimidate to get things done.
• Create space for others to contribute freely. “I give you space; you give me back your best work. We need space to contribute and to work.”
  • He teaches his organization that mistakes are a way of life in the investment business. And how does he respond to mistakes? First, he doesn’t panic or assign arbitrary blame. One team member said, “He lets us know that when decisions are collective, the mistakes are collective, too. No one person takes the blame.” The team then does a postmortem and learns how to avoid the error a second time.
  • In his class, he doesn’t tolerate laziness. You’re always working, thinking things over, and seeing your mistakes so you can learn from them. It’s a professional and serious environment, which gets lighter and more fun as the students work harder. In this environment, students are encouraged to speak up and voice their opinions. Equal weight is given to asking a good question and to answering one of his.
  • Expectations for the students’ learning are both clear and extremely high. He believes that with high expectations come high results. He demands our best. He makes it clear that if we put in our hardest effort, we will succeed. He doesn’t hide anything from us and lets us know what to improve on. He demands that we work to the best of our ability. There is no homework in his class—nothing assigned, nothing arbitrary. Instead, students are encouraged to do “independent study” to help them understand the ideas and perform well on tests. The students, having made the choice themselves, do the independent study with zeal.
    • QUESTION: Who decides what is right or wrong? Who is the arbiter of truth? My answer: everyone. Anyone can—and everyone should—debate to seek the truth.
  • Authoritarian leaders might request—if not demand—people’s best thinking, but they fail to establish the environment where ideas are easily expressed and developed to full maturity and efficacy.
    • OBSERVATION: Leaders, who intimidate and control, stifle the flow of ideas and prevent their teams from doing their best work. Such leaders believe that fear and authority will drive great results, but in reality, they only create environments where potential is wasted, and people hold back.
  • Be a ferocious listener. Liberators are more than just good listeners; they are ferocious listeners. They listen to feed their hunger for knowledge, to learn what other people know and add to their own knowledge, to learn what other people know and add it to their own reservoir of knowledge.
    • Wisdom doesn’t just come from the top; it comes from all across the organization. But, as a leader, you have to do more than just not discourage it, you need to actively encourage people to speak up, The leader has to ask questions and invite the most junior people to express their ideas.
    • In studying Multipliers, I have often wondered, How smart do you have to be to be a Multiplier? The answer from Bill Campbell, former chairman and CEO of Intuit, was perfect: “You have to be smart enough to learn.”
    • “He brings an intellectual curiosity for why things didn’t work out.”
    • Being selective about when to speak in meetings helps people remain mindful of how much they dominate discussions.
      • I gave him five poker chips, each worth a number of seconds of talk time. One was worth 120 seconds, the next three worth 90 seconds, and one was worth just 30.
      • Try giving yourself a budget of poker chips for a meeting. Maybe it is five; maybe it is just one or two. Use them wisely, and leave the rest of the space for others to contribute.
    • SOFT V.S. HARD OPINIONS. Reserve strong opinions for critical junctures, and at other times, foster an environment where every voice is heard, allowing the best ideas to surface.
      • Soft opinions: you have a perspective to offer and ideas for someone else to consider. Hard opinions: you have a clear and potentially emphatic point of view.
      • By doing this, you can create space for others to comfortably disagree with your “soft opinions” and establish their own views. Reserve “hard opinions” for when they really matter.
  • Normalize mistakes/failures as esssential to progress.
    • Let them know how you have incorporated this learning into your decisions and current leadership practices. As a manager of a consulting group, you might share with your team the time you led a project that failed and how you dealt with the irate customer. You can focus on what the experience taught you and how it shaped your current approach to project management.
    • As a corporate manager, I would often take this practice to the extreme. A regular feature in my staff meetings was “screwup of the week.” If any member of my management team, including myself, had an embarrassing blunder, this was the time to go public, have a good laugh, and move on. This simple gesture sent a message to the team: Mistakes are an essential part of progress.
    • Chris said, “With Lutz, you get to make mistakes. But you are expected to learn fast. With Lutz, it’s okay to fail. You just can’t make the same mistake twice.”
• THE CHALLENGER. Rather than employing a directive approach, the “challenger” embraces an inquiry-based method designed to cultivate collective problem-solving and instill confidence across the organization. This approach allows all members to engage in shaping a broader strategic vision, collaboratively testing, refining, and validating the strategy.
  • And then, with this broad stroke of his brush, he stopped telling and started asking, “Are these the transformations needed in the business?” and “Which of our assumptions about the future might be wrong?” Ray gave the group a challenge to fill in the blanks. The team would have two days to examine each of the four transformations, identify milestones, and pinpoint the implications for the business, and then pass their thinking on to the next group of leaders, who would go further. The group did exactly that, advancing the thinking of the executive team and then handing off their work to the next group of executives. The group reveled in their collective success and left the forum knowing that they had begun something big. The process continued until every SVP and VP had been involved and each group had challenged the work that had been done before them. They took their task seriously, turning the strategy upside down and sideways as they looked for holes, logic flaws, and vulnerabilities. In the end, they emerged with both a validation and a refinement of the collective thinking. And momentum was still building.
  • “This confidence is essential, because the challenge will demand that the entire organization extend itself beyond its current reach and capability.”
  • When the Multiplier has generated belief in what is possible, the weight shifts and the organization is willing to leave the realm of the known and venture into the unknown.
    • “What would be your Mission Impossible?”
    • Jimmy Carter said, “If you have a task to perform and are vitally interested in it, excited and challenged by it, then you will exert maximum energy. But in the excitement, the pain of fatigue dissipates, and the exuberance of what you hope to achieve overcomes the weariness.”
    • IMPORTANT: Many view challengers as leaders who focus solely on enforcing discipline and addressing critical issues. However, they often overlook the crucial role of inspiring belief in their team’s ability to create solutions that bring the strategic vision to life.
  • ASK QUESTIONS THAT FOCUS TEAM INTELLIGENCE ON THE RIGHT PROBLEM. Bad leaders give answers. Good leaders ask questions. Great leaders ask the really hard questions.
• THE DEBATE MAKER. Debate makers emphasize collective intelligence over individual expertise. They seek to understand what others know and bring that to the forefront of decision-making.
  • Multipliers hold a very different view. They don’t focus on what they know but on how to know what others know. They operate on the assumption that with enough good minds on it, we can figure it out.
  • “…challenge and stretch each other’s thinking through collective dialogue and debate.”
  • Debate Makers pursue all sides of the issue.
  • “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
  • When the discussion was beginning to reach a settling point, he pushed harder, asking people to switch sides and argue against their previously stated position—“Chris, switch sides with Raza. Raza, you’ve been for this idea, you now argue against it. Chris, you now argue for it.” They would switch roles, which felt awkward for a moment or two, but soon they’d begin to pound the issues from the other vantage point. Or, to broaden people’s perspectives, he asked his people to assume roles outside of their functional area. Lutz persisted, “Teresa, you’ve been offering an international perspective on this, now look at it with a domestic hat on.” And “Lee Anne, you’ve been looking at the technical issues. I want you to debate this from the marketing perspective.”
    • IMPORTANT: The value of engaging diverse perspectives lies in constructing a comprehensive, nuanced understanding of reality.
  • Multipliers create safety, but they also maintain pressure for a reality-based, rigorous debate. Multipliers make sure everyone is wearing a seat belt because they are about to put their foot on the accelerator.
• THE INVESTOR. Investors invest in the success of others. They may jump in to teach and share their ideas, but they always return to accountability. Investors understand that their role is to invest, to teach, and to coach, and they keep the accountability for the play with the players. By doing so, they create organizations that can win without them on the field.
  • Giving someone 51 percent of the vote and full ownership creates certainty and builds confidence.
  • “This is a complex issue, and probably beyond the scope of your role, but you should be the one to lead the resolution.”
  • John does jump in, but, like the partner at McKinsey in Seoul, he hands the pen back. By doing so, he signals that he is interested and engaged, but not the one in charge. He gives it back, and the accountability for designing and building a great product stays with the other person, who incidentally is also built up in the process.
  • “Hey, that is good thinking.” So he begins by praising the edge of great thinking. Then he affirms their ownership of the business problem at hand by saying, “I’d love to know whether we should invest in X or Y. I mean, you’re smart. You can figure this out.”
  • “The reward for winning a pinball game is to get a chance to play the next one.”

Downsides of certain leadership behaviors

• Avoid being overly responsive or quick to provide answers to your team.
  • As leaders, sometimes the faster we run, the slower others walk. When leaders set the pace, they are more likely to create spectators than followers.
  • The Rapid Responder can create activity traffic jams across his organization. Because he responds to problems and questions quickly, he releases a lot of decisions into the workflow of his team. The roads become flooded with decisions and as those decisions prompt an excess of action, people move at a crawl, and soon it is full-fledged gridlock.
• Avoid excessive optimism.
  • When the leader sees only the upside, others can become preoccupied with the downside.
• Avoid being overprotective; allow them to fail and learn.
  • If the leader continually protects people from danger, they never learn to fend for themselves.
  • If we’ve been made to feel like we can’t do anything right, we cease trying or tune out.
  • IMPORTANT: Only through failure can people be enlightened. They need to learn through a genuine, intense desire to succeed that is, however, thwarted.
• Mind the image you project.
  • If you’ve built a reputation as a big thinker, don’t be surprised if people save the big thinking for you.

Final reflections:

• A good leader embodies all five archetypes (Talent Magnet, Liberator, Challenger, Debate Maker, and Investor) to build a rich environment contributing to the personal growth and self-actualization of those they lead.
• Leading a team is a lot like raising children, guiding them to become independent, confident, and capable of handling difficult challenges.

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