Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter

by Liz Wiseman

The most valuable asset of a 21st-century institution, whether business or non-business, will be its knowledge workers and their productivity.

leaders used their intelligence in a fundamentally different way. 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, light bulbs started going off 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.

How do some leaders create intelligence around them, while others diminish it?

“What are the vital few differences between intelligence Diminishers and intelligence Multipliers, and what impact do they have on organizations?”

He wasn’t the center of attention and didn’t worry about how smart he looked.

In a typical meeting, he spoke only about 10 percent of the time, mostly just to “crisp up” the problem statement. He would then back away and give his team space to figure out an answer.

The problem was that this leader did all the thinking.

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 made all the decisions himself or with a single confidant.

“You always knew he would have an answer for everything. He had really strong opinions and put his energy into selling his ideas to others and convincing them to execute on the details. No one else’s opinion mattered.” This manager hired intelligent people, but they soon realized that they didn’t have per...

The second leader was so absorbed in his own intelligence that he stifled others and diluted the organization’s crucial intelligence and capability.

It isn’t how much you know that matters. What matters is how much access you 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.

Leaders rooted in the logic of multiplication believe: 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’ two-step logic appears to be people who don’t “get it” now, never will; therefore, I’ll need to keep doing the thinking for everyone.

And in the end, you would almost always be right, because your assumptions would cause you to manage in a way that produced subordination and dependency.

Multipliers see intelligence as continually developing.

basic qualities like intelligence and ability can be cultivated through effort.11 They assume: people are smart and will figure it out.

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.

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 intelligence in a way that would actually make them smarter.

Diminishers operate as Empire Builders, insisting that they must own and control resources to be more productive.

The Diminisher is an Empire Builder. The Multiplier is a Talent Magnet.

They remove fear and create the safety that invites people to do their best thinking. But they also create an intense environment that demands people’s best effort.

Diminishers operate as Know-It-Alls, personally giving directives to showcase their knowledge. While Diminishers set direction, Multipliers ensure direction gets set.

Multipliers deliver and sustain superior results by inculcating high expectations across the organization. By serving as Investors, Multipliers provide necessary resources for success. In addition, they hold people accountable for their commitments.

Multipliers make people feel smart and capable; but Multipliers aren’t “feel-good” managers. They look into people and find capability, and they want to access all of it. They utilize people to their fullest. They see a lot, so they expect a lot.

He recruits great people, allows them to make mistakes, and ferociously debates the important decisions. He demands our best, but then shares the success with the whole team.”

most of us fall along this spectrum and have the ability to move toward the side of the Multiplier.

He took the time to get to know each person and to understand the capabilities they brought to the team.

“What is the next challenge for you? What would be a stretch assignment?”

In one-on-one meetings, Mitt not only asked about the status of project deliverables, he asked about the blockers.

“What is getting in the way of your being successful?”

Meanwhile, many of Meg’s colleagues didn’t get the same guidance and found themselves working for more typical company leaders who appeared more concerned with advancing their o...

The cycle of attraction begins with a leader possessing the confidence and magnetism to surround him or herself with “A players”—

Under the leadership of the Talent Magnet, the genius of these players gets discovered and utilized to the fullest. Having been stretched, these players become smarter and more capable.

1) look for talent everywhere; 2) find people’s native genius; 3) utilize people at their fullest; and 4) remove the blockers.

people love to contribute their genius. If they put in the effort to figure out someone’s genius, they have opened a pathway for that person to contribute. They can utilize them.

These leaders see an unlimited talent pool that they can draw from. Everyone works for a Multiplier.

Talent Magnets look for talent everywhere and then study that talent to uncover and unlock the real genius that lies within.

By “native genius” I mean something even more specific than a strength or a skill that might be highly rated on a 360 degree leadership assessment. 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).

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?

By telling people what you see, you can raise their awareness and confidence, allowing them to provide their capability more fully.

“Larry commented publicly about my speed.” John was surprised when the coach started talking in front of the other guys about how fast he was. He continued, “I thought I had good speed, but not great speed. But because Larry singled it out, it inspired me to develop a distinct self-concept: I was fast. And every time I found myself in a situation where speed was required, I remembered this, and I pushed myself beyond my limits.” John not only became fast, he became really fast.

“She tells me the talent she sees in me and why it matters. She tells me why girls’ camp will be better because of me and my work.” But Marguerite doesn’t stop there. She lets everyone else know, too. It is typical for her to introduce someone to the group by

But Talent Magnets go beyond just giving people resources. They remove the impediments, which quite often means removing the people who are blocking and impeding the growth of others. In almost every organization there are people who overrun others, consuming the resources needed to fuel the growth of people around them.

He established one rule: No prima donnas—leave your ego at the door and work as a team.

“Nothing grows under a banyan tree.” It provides shade and is comfortable, but it allows no sun in for growth. Many leaders are banyan trees; they protect their people, but nothing grows under them. 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.” Talent Magnets remove the barriers that block the growth of intelligence in their people.

Diminishers tend to make decisions solo or with a small inner circle.

Multipliers make decisions by first engaging people in debate—not only to achieve sound decisions, but also to develop collective intelligence and to ready their organizations to execute.

laying out the challenge to the group, teeing up the issues and turning on the heat for the work of the task force. He made it clear that the CEO and the other top lieutenants of the company were expecting significant progress in the mid market. Driven by a high-stakes mandate, people began compiling data and analysis and submitting it to Jonathan over the course of several weeks.

Need to also outline roles and how to execute

Jonathan had left unclear the role the task force members would play and how the recommendations and decisions would actually get made. Instead of using the brainpower inherent in the task force, Jonathan used the task force as an audience for his own ideas.

Although he gathered data from each task force member quite tenaciously, none of this information was shared or discussed in the task force meetings.