There’s a lot of capacity being wasted

How would you feel if I told you, give me $100 and I’ll give you $20 back, and nothing else? Or think about purchasing a car capable of going 200MPH but it will be capped at 40MPH?

This is precisely the situation many leaders within organizations produce every day!

Now, think about it in the other direction - wouldn’t it be great if I told you, give me $100, and I’ll give you $200.- with no strings attached?

In Multipliers, Liz Wiseman uses her research and experience with leaders across organizations to discover what it is that people do that enable others to deliver at their potential and beyond, and what actions other leaders perform that have the exact opposite effect.

The role of the leader, particularly in the knowledge economy, is to enable and leverage every possible ounce of intellectual capacity in her team.

Engagement and commitment

The more you believe and give room to others, the more genius you help your team find within themselves, the more committed they’ll become.

I’ve found two common themes that define outstanding leadership, both in my experience as I progress in the endless task of becoming a leader, as well as in the literature that fuels my thinking:

1. The need for effective leadership to get team member commitment, and the contrasting huge number of employees that feel disengaged with work.

2. The fact that outstanding leaders focus on enabling their followers to reach their potential.

These two themes were present in First break all the rules and works on leadership by Max de Pree, and are also two of the core arguments that Liz Wiseman addresses in Multipliers.

The path to becoming a genius maker

Ask, listen, and believe people are smart, and they’ll figure it out.

These are the basic tenets that will enable you as a leader to produce more genius around you.

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

Leadership is sometimes counterintuitive, a lot of times it’s not about answering questions or filling the gaps, it’s the exact opposite! It’s all about the questions you ask, and the space you create for others to fill in the blanks.

The objective is to create a virtuous cycle, where the leader’s direction and intense challenges keep pushing her team to find new capabilities and overcome their limits, which in turn raise the capacity bar, increase the commitment of the team and their own level of excitement and trust, which enables the leader to push them towards a yet larger challenge.

The bitter truth of seeing the Diminisher in one self

Reading Multipliers, I was able to see in my own behavior the many times I acted as a Diminisher, the many times that I did not notice I was actually shutting down people around me, and the many times I’ve thought I was being driven, energetic and the “example to follow” but in reality what I was doing was disabling those around me from expressing their own genius.

Throughout my career, intellect has been one of the more relevant drivers of my success. I have seen how this turns into a certain elitist view where one identifies intelligence as a rare and scarce resource.

It would not surprise me if that was a common theme across numerous leaders, and this becomes almost a rite of passage:

As a leader, it is no longer about your own intelligence or ability, rather your ability to expose the potential of those around you.

The Diminisher’s view of intelligence is based on elitism and scarcity. Diminishers appear to believe that really intelligent people are a rare breed that 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.

Transforming into a Multiplier

The world is much richer and better in the eyes of a multiplier. As I go through the process of transforming the way I approach other’s talents and uniqueness, it’s an almost transcendental journey that transforms my overall life experience.

Hope and union, and endless possibilities. You are not alone, it is not your burden alone, and those around you are ripe with potential.

These key realizations will not just allow you to engage others in a way that is more meaningful to them, but also unveil a world with ore options available, where bigger and bolder ideas can be developed, and where people are happier and more energized.

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

Now you know what others can do, so create intensity

But don’t mistake this new optimistic and full of potential view of the world and people around you as a “soft” way of leading where things just fall into place if you put your sunshine glasses on.

It is now your job to create the intensity necessary to reveal that capacity.

Now that you know that everybody is capable of great things, then you must expect and drive that greatness - the keyword is intense vs tense. You must create an intense environment, where your team is held accountable for that unique capacity you’ve found in them.

If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Start (or continue) your journey as a Multiplier

Multipliers is a fantastic resource to add to your leadership arsenal. It will help you find patterns in your behavior that are triggering responses from your team that are completely contrary to what you really wish you were doing, and it will add new components to your ability in viewing the people and world around you with a different, more powerful, set of eyes.

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