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

by Liz Wiseman

There is more intelligence inside our organizations than we are using.

“We are just running so lean. I can’t imagine a world where you could work in silos and not collaborate. You used to be able to isolate yourself, but now efficiency requires collaboration.

too many organizations are still overmanaged and underled.

I’ve learned that people across cultures, across professions, across industries come to work each day hoping to be well utilized—not by being given more and more work, but through the recognition that they are capable of contributing in significant ways and doing progressively more challenging work.

For others, their diminishing colleagues leave them so enervated that their will to lead excellently is weakened as well.

While you cannot change another person, you can change your response and smooth the sharp edges of your diminishing boss or colleague.

Unlocking individual potential is not just a matter of personal will and individual behavior change; it is a function of entire systems, and reshaping collective will is hard work.

Our world is rapidly changing. To keep up and to create the type of workplaces where people thrive, we need diminishing leaders to be replaced by those who serve as true Multipliers, inspiring collective intelligence and capability on a mass scale.

a change in command can often cause a change in capability. He was stupefied with fear under one leader, but smart and capable under another.

Some leaders make us better and smarter. They bring out our intelligence.

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 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.

Perhaps these leaders understood that the person sitting at the apex of the intelligence hierarchy is the genius maker, not the genius.

Some leaders seemed to boost the collective IQ while others sucked the mental life out of their employees.

They needed to find ways to boost the productivity of the people they already had.

Yes, certain leaders amplify intelligence. These leaders, whom we have come to call Multipliers, create collective, viral intelligence in organizations.

organizations rise or fall based on the strength of their intellectual assets,

“He was very, very smart. But people had a way of shutting down around him. He just killed our ideas. In a typical team meeting, he did about 30 percent of the talking and left little space for others. He gave a lot of feedback—most of it was about how bad our ideas were.”

This manager hired intelligent people, but they soon realized that they didn’t have permission to think for themselves. Eventually, they would quit or threaten to quit.

Multipliers are genius makers. What we mean by that is that they make everyone around them smarter and more capable. Multipliers invoke each person’s unique intelligence and create an atmosphere of genius—innovation, productive effort, and collective intelligence.

at the most fundamental level, they get dramatically different results from their people, they hold a different logic and set of assumptions about people’s intelligence,

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.

when people work with Multipliers, they hold nothing back. They offer the very best of their thinking, creativity, and ideas. They give more than their jobs require and volunteer their discretionary effort, energy, and resourcefulness. They actively search for more valuable ways to contribute. They hold themselves to the highest standards.

Not only do Multipliers extract capability and intelligence from people, they do it in a way that extends and grows that intelligence.

Multipliers not only access people’s current capability, they stretch it. They get more from people than they knew they had to give. People reported actually getting smarter around Multipliers.

When these children were recognized for their efforts to think, they created a belief, and then a reality, that intelligence grows.

bad environments suppress children’s IQs.

When you extrapolate the 2× Multiplier effect to the organization, you begin to see the strategic relevance. Simply said, resource leverage creates competitive advantage.

Let’s take the example of Tim Cook, currently CEO of Apple Inc. When Tim was COO and opened a budget review in one sales division, he reminded the management team that the strategic imperative was revenue growth. Everyone expected this, but they were astounded when he asked for the growth without providing additional headcount. The sales executive at the meeting said he thought the revenue target was attainable but only with more headcount. He suggested they follow a proven linear model of incremental headcount growth, insisting that everyone knows that more revenue means you need more headcount. The two executives continued the conversation for months, never fully able to bridge their logic. The sales executive was speaking the language of addition (that is, higher growth by adding more resources). Tim was speaking the language of multiplication (that is, higher growth by better utilizing the resources that already exist).

This is the logic of addition. It seems persuasive but, importantly, it ignores the opportunity to more deeply leverage existing resources. The logic of addition creates a scenario in which people become both overworked and underutilized. To argue for allocation without giving attention to resource leverage is an expensive corporate norm.

This leader was so heavily involved in the details that he became a bottleneck in the organization.

Instead of achieving linear growth by adding new resources, leaders rooted in the logic of multiplication believe that you can more efficiently extract the capability of your people and watch growth skyrocket by multiplying the power of the resources you have.

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.

they gathered the key players across the various job functions, took a week to study the problem, and collaboratively developed a solution.

Resource leverage is a far richer concept than merely “accomplishing more with less.” Multipliers don’t get more with less; they get more by using more. More of people’s intelligence and capability, enthusiasm and trust.

“Eighty people can either operate with the productivity of fifty or they can operate as though they were five hundred.”

“growth mindset,” a belief that basic qualities like intelligence and ability can be cultivated through effort.12 They assume that people are smart and will figure it out.

“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.

Multipliers look at the complex opportunities and challenges swirling around them and think, There are smart people everywhere who will figure this out and get even smarter in the process. And they see that their job is to bring the right people together in an environment that liberates everyone’s best thinking—and then to get out of their way and let them do it!

In the most trying times, you would trust your people; you would extend hard challenges to them and allow them space to fulfill their responsibilities. You would access their intelligen...

Multipliers are Talent Magnets; they attract and deploy talent to its fullest, regardless of who owns the resource, and people flock to work with them because they know they will grow and be successful.

The Diminisher is an Empire Builder who acquires resources and then wastes them. The Multiplier is a Talent Magnet who utilizes and increases everyone’s genius.

Multipliers establish a unique and highly motivating work environment where everyone has permission to think and the space to do their best work.

Multipliers operate as Liberators, which produces a climate that is both comfortable and intense. They are able to remove fear and create the safety that invites people to do their best thinking.

In contrast, Diminishers operate as Tyrants, introducing judgment and a fear of judgment, which have a chilling effe...

The Diminisher is a Tyrant who creates a stressful environment. The Multiplier is a Liberator who creates a safe environment that fosters bold thinking.

Multipliers act as Challengers, continually challenging themselves and others to push beyond what they know. How do they do this? They seed opportunities, lay down challenges that stretch the organization, and, in doing so, generate belief that it can be done and enthusiasm about the process.

The Diminisher is a Know-It-All who gives directives. The Multiplier is a Challenger who defines opportunities.

Multipliers operate as Debate Makers, driving sound decisions through rigorous debate. The decision-making process they foster contains all the information the organization needs to be ready to execute those decisions.