Multipliers, Revised and Updated: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter

by Liz Wiseman

corporations have made hiring the most intelligent individuals a core strategy on the basis that smarter people can solve problems more quickly than the competition. But that only works if the organizations can access that intelligence.

the role of leader has shifted, too—moving away from a model where the manager knows, directs, and tells and toward one where the leader sees, provokes, asks, and unleashes the capabilities of others.

When you think about what is best for the organization and remove your ego, being a Multiplier is the only way to go.”

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. For them to look smart, other people had to end up looking dumb.

Other leaders used their intelligence as a tool rather than a weapon. They applied their intelligence to amplify the smarts and capability of people around them. People got smarter and better in their presence. Ideas grew, challenges were surmounted, hard problems were solved. When these leaders walked into a room, lightbulbs started switching on over people’s heads. Ideas flew so fast that you had to replay the meeting in slow motion just to see what was going on. Meetings with them were idea mash-up sessions. These leaders seemed to make everyone around them better and more capable. These leaders weren’t just intelligent themselves—they were intelligence Multipliers.

the person sitting at the apex of the intelligence hierarchy is the genius maker, not the genius.

It isn’t how much you know that matters. What matters is how much access you have to what other people know.

children given a series of progressively harder puzzles and praised for their intelligence stagnate for fear of reaching the limit of their intelligence. Children given the same series of puzzles but then praised for their hard work actually increased their ability to reason and to solve problems.

Operational leaders entrenched in the logic of resource allocation and addition argue: 1. Our people are overworked. 2. Our best people are the most maxed out. 3. Therefore, accomplishing a bigger task requires the addition of more resources.

Here is the logic behind multiplication: 1. Most people in organizations are underutilized. 2. All capability can be leveraged with the right kind of leadership. 3. Therefore, intelligence and capability can be multiplied without requiring a bigger investment.

Diminishers appear to believe that really intelligent people are a rare breed and that they are of that rare breed. From this assumption they conclude that they are so special, other people will never figure things out without them.

They assume that people are smart and will figure it out.

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?” She then finds an assignment that both stretches the individual and furthers the interests of the organization.

During our research interviews, people oozed appreciation for the Multipliers they had worked with, but the gratitude was rooted in the deep satisfaction found in working with them, not in the pleasantries of a relationship. One person described working with Deb Lange, a senior vice president of taxation at a large firm: “Working with her was like an intense workout. It was exhausting but totally exhilarating.”

Earvin noticed the faces of the parents who had come to watch their sons play basketball but instead ended up watching this superstar. He said, “I made a decision at this very young age that I would use my God-given talent to help everyone on the team be a better player.”13 And this decision eventually earned him the nickname Magic—for his ability to raise the level of excellence of every team he ever played on and of every person on those teams. 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.

gives them an environment with a lot of pressure but very little stress,

A favorite question was “What is getting in the way of your being successful?”

Would your people describe you as someone who recognizes talented people, draws them in, and utilizes them at their fullest? Would they say they have grown more around you than with any other manager they have worked for? Or would they describe you as someone who pulled them into your organization not as a talent to be developed, but more as a resource to be deployed, and then left to languish? Would they perhaps say that they were heavily recruited but not given a meaningful role—just a visible role—and were serving as a showpiece or hood ornament in your organization?

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. So they stay and wait, hoping things will turn around. This cycle of degeneration impacts not only one person; it infects an entire organization. The organization becomes an elephant graveyard earning a reputation as “the place people go to die.” As one technology superstar said of his empty vice president job, “I’m definitely past my sell-by date here.”

What people do easily, they do without conscious effort. They do it better than anything else they do, but they don’t need to apply extraordinary effort to the task. They get results that are head-and shoulders above others, but they do it without breaking a sweat. What people do freely, they do without condition. They don’t need to be paid or rewarded to do it and often don’t need to be asked. It is something that gives them inherent satisfaction, and they offer their capability voluntarily, even ardently. It is effortless, and they stand ready and willing to contribute, whether it is a formal job requirement or not.

energy. As you watch someone in action, ask these questions: What do they do better than anything else they do? What do they do better than the people around them? What do they do without effort? What do they do without being asked? What do they do readily without being paid?

She chose her assistant directors not only for their strengths but because we each had strengths in areas where she was weak.” She then finds a place where each person’s genius will shine. For some, it is working with the girls one-on-one; for another, it is managing the sports program; for another it is leading the nightly campfire. But each role is carefully cast to draw upon the unique talents of every person on the team. Marguerite then makes it clear to each person why she has been selected for that role. She not only notices their talent; she labels it for them.

“This is Jennifer. She’s a creative genius, and we are so fortunate to have her leading our art program.”

If you want to unleash the talent that is latent in your organization, find the weeds and pull them out. Don’t do it quietly. Like K. R. Sridhar, huddle the team immediately, and let them know that you’ve removed someone because he or she was holding back the team. Give people permission to think fully again.

“Nothing grows under a banyan tree.” It provides shade and is comfortable, but it allows no sun in for growth.

One corporate VP had a favorite saying, quoted often and written on her door: “Ignore me as needed to get your job done.” This simple mantra signaled an important trust in the judgment and capability of others. Her people knew that exercising their judgment and getting the job done rapidly was more important than placating the boss. She told new staff members, “Yes, there will be a few times when I get agitated because I would have done it differently, but I’ll get over it. I’d rather you trust your judgment, keep moving, and get the job done.”

Imagine, if you will, a corporate manager “genius watching,” observing each member of her team and noticing what they do naturally and freely. Instead of taking inventory of who has done their job, she asks, “How can I use their natural genius to get our most important jobs done?”

Instead of asking, “Is this person smart?” try asking, “In what way is this person smart?”

When offering his opinion, he distinguishes “hard opinions” from “soft opinions.” Soft opinions signal to his team: Here are some ideas for you to consider in your own thinking. Hard opinions are reserved for times when he holds a very strong view.

One of the comments read, “It is just easier to hold back and let Kate do the thinking.” Kate was stunned. Every step she had taken up the corporate ladder made it that much easier for her to unintentionally kill other people’s ideas. The nature of the hierarchy had skewed power, making every conversation Kate had with a subordinate inherently unequal because the playing field was tilted in her favor. An off-the-cuff remark could be translated as a strong opinion and turned into policy for her division. If she rolled her eyes or sighed sharply after someone’s comment, everyone in the room noticed and avoided saying anything they thought would produce the same reaction. She had more power than she had realized. She had become an Accidental Diminisher.

People hold back around leaders like Jenna. Such Tyrants shut down the flow of intelligence and rarely access people’s best work. Everywhere they go, they find people doing less than they really can. It is no wonder they resort to intimidation, thinking it will get them what they no doubt want—great thinking and great work. But intimidation and fear rarely produce truly great work.

“We know he must have been getting pressure from up higher, but he didn’t create anxiety for us. He remained calm and just never wigged out. He doesn’t create whiplash for his people.”

Diminishers create a stress-filled environment because they don’t give people control over their own performance. They operate as Tyrants, overexerting their will on the organization and causing others to shrink, retreat, and hold back. In the presence of a Tyrant, people try not to stand out. Just consider how people operate under the rule of a political dictator.

One way he elicits the best thinking from people is that he knows what people are actually capable of producing. Though he knows everyone’s job intimately, he doesn’t do it for them. He tells them that he has hired them because he admires their work. He uses his knowledge of the job and of their personal capabilities to set a standard for demanding their best efforts.

bad ideas are an okay starting point.

He establishes an open, creative environment, but he still demands extraordinary work from his team. One of his crew members said, “He expects people to be doing their best. And you know it when you aren’t giving your best.”

He demands that we work to the best of our ability.” No more, no less—just to the best of their ability.

the duality we consistently found that Liberators embraced. They appear to hold two ostensibly opposing positions with equal fervor. They create both comfort and pressure in the environment. In the eyes of the Liberator, it is a just exchange: I give you space; you give me back your best work.

Liberators also give people space to make mistakes. They create an environment of learning, but they expect people to learn from the mistakes. Another fair trade: I give you permission to make mistakes; you have an obligation to learn from the mistakes and not repeat them.

With John’s encouragement, his team and I decided to define a space for experimentation. We rapidly laid out their various work scenarios into two buckets: in one, failure was okay; in the other, success had to be assured. The group debated each until they agreed on every scenario. Within an hour, they had created a playground—a safe space for their teams to struggle and potentially fail without harming their stakeholders or their business. With the boundaries clearly defined, John’s team didn’t require optimism from above; hopeful energy radiated from within. This thinking rippled across Nike’s design community and sparked leaders such as Casey Lehner, senior director of global design operations, to introduce the “risk and iterate” performance goal that encouraged each design operations director to identify something they would take a risk with and then iterate solutions throughout the year.

In any formal organization, the playing field is not exactly level, and certain voices are inherently advantaged. These usually include senior executives, influential thought leaders, critical organizations like product development or sales, and people with deep legacy knowledge. Unless the situation is managed, other voices, that are perhaps closest to the real issues, can be muffled. Liberators know how to amplify these voices to extract maximum intelligence and give advantage to the ideas and voices on the lower end of the playing field.

Larry Gelwix, the head coach of Highland Rugby, stood at the center of a huddle of rugby players at the side of the field for the team’s first game debrief of the season. Larry asked one question: “Did you give your best?” One player enthusiastically spoke up, “Well we won, didn’t we?” Not unkindly, Larry said, “That’s not the question I asked.” Another player jumped in. “We just dominated that team. We won 64 to 20. What more could you ask for?” Larry said, “When you came for tryouts, I said I expected your best. That means your best thinking out there as well as your best physical effort. Is that what you gave today?”

As a manager you know when someone is below his or her usual performance. What is harder to know is whether people are giving everything they have. Asking whether people are offering their best gives them the opportunity to push themselves beyond previous limits. It is a key reason why people report that Multipliers get more than 100 percent intelligence out of them.

“If you want your organization to take risks, you have to separate the experiment from the outcome. I have zero tolerance if someone does not run the experiment. But I don’t hold them accountable for the outcome of the experiment.

K. R. understands the distinction between pressure and stress. He cites the famous image of William Tell shooting an apple off his son’s head: “In this scenario, William Tell feels pressure. His son feels stress.” K. R. keeps the pressure on his team to act, but doesn’t create stress by holding them accountable for outcomes beyond their control.

Lutz does not hide his own mistakes or divert them to his staff, he confesses them shamelessly. He loves to tell stories, and his favorites are about his mistakes. When he launched an unsuccessful product, he talked about it openly and what he learned from it. One member of his management team said, “He brings an intellectual curiosity for why things didn’t work out.” By taking his mistakes public, he made it safe for others to take risks and fail.

Tyrants impose an “anxiety tax” wherever they go, because a percentage of people’s mental energy is consumed trying to avoid upsetting the Tyrant.

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.

Divide your views into “soft opinions” and “hard opinions”: 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.

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.