I wanted to take a moment to share a great leadership book I read through in 2015 that continues to shape and challenge the way I lead others. Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter
Leadership
Much of what constitutes good leadership can be summarized in two words: respect and selflessness.
How we relate to those two words will determine how we lead. Consider two assumptions that lie at the opposite ends of the spectrum:
• Really intelligent people are a rare breed and I am one of the few really smart people. People will never be able to figure things out without me. I need to have all the answers.
• Smart people are everywhere and will figure things out and get even smarter in the process. My job is to ask the right questions.
What you believe has a big impact on the performance, engagement, loyalty and the transparency you find with those you lead and interact with. In Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter, authors Liz Wiseman and Greg McKeown refer to those with the mindset represented by the first assumption as Diminshers and those with the mindset represented by the second assumption as Multipliers. It explains why some leaders create intelligence around them, while others diminish it.
The value of Multipliers is that is shows what these assumptions about people look like in practice and how they are reflected in your behavior. How would you approach your job differently if you believed that people are smart and can figure it out? With a Multiplier mindset, people will surprise you. They will give more. You will learn more. What kind of solutions could we generate if you could access the underutilized brainpower in the world? How much more could you accomplish?
It’s not that Diminishers don’t get things done. They do. It’s just that the people around them feel drained, overworked and underutilized. Some leaders seem to drain the “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 [has] a diminishing effect on everyone else. For them to look smart, other people had to end up looking dumb.” In short, Diminishers are absorbed in their own intelligence, stifle others, and deplete the organization of crucial intelligence and capability.
Multipliers get more done by leveraging (using more) of the intelligence and capabilities of the people around them. They respect others. “Multipliers are leaders who look beyond their own genius and focus their energy on extracting and extending the genius of others.” These are not “feel good” leaders. “They are tough and exacting managers who see a lot of capacity in others and want to utilize that potential to the fullest.”
The authors have identified five key behaviors or disciplines that distinguish Multipliers from Diminishers. You are not either/or but are somewhere along a continuum. These are all learned behaviors and have everything to do with how you view people. We don’t have to be great in all disciplines to be a Multiplier, but we have to be at least neutral in those disciplines we struggle with.
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Popular Highlights in this book
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.Highlighted by 3,545 Kindle readers- The Diminisher is an Empire Builder. The Multiplier is a Talent Magnet.Highlighted by 2,520 Kindle readers
- Finding people’s native genius and then labeling it is a direct approach to drawing more intelligence from them.Highlighted by 2,378 Kindle readers
From the Publisher
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Daphne
One of the BEST leadership books EVER!
Reviewed in Canada on September 7, 2023
