I recently attended Business Forum 2012 in Melbourne and witnessed Liz Wiseman keynote presentation on the concepts from her book Multipliers: How the best leaders make everyone smarter. She discussed the experiences we have all had over the years with the very different leadership types and illustrated the benefits for every organisation to employ Multipliers.
“People won’t figure it out without me”
The Diminisher drains your intelligence and capability by supressing your talent and ambitions for their need to be the smartest person in the room. They are known as The Empire Builder, The Tyrant, The Know-it-all, The Decision Maker and The Micromanager.
“People are smart and will figure it out”
The Multiplier amplifies the intelligence and capability of their people by engaging and encouraging thoughts that ultimately lead to results beyond initial expectations. They are known as The Talent Magnet, The Liberator, The Challenger, The Debate Maker and The Investor.
Liz then took us through a self-reflection as part of illustrating the detrimental impact Diminishers have on organisations compared to Multipliers. She asked the following questions:
- What did your Diminisher do to you?
- How much intelligence did they get out of you? (0-100%)
- What did your Multiplier do to you?
- How much intelligence did they get out of you? (0-100%)
There was consensus around the actions of Diminishers (they prohibit growth, supress motivation) compared to Multipliers (trigger ideas, stretch and challenge) as well as the average scores from the room at the forum (mine included) were identical to the results from Liz researching 150 leaders from 35 companies (pre and post the financial crisis) in the United States. On average Diminishers accessed 48% of their people’s intelligence compared to Multipliers at 95%. Therefore, it was concluded that Multipliers achieve 2 times more capability, energy and intelligence from their people than Diminishers. The gap between the two types of leaders is quite outstanding and costly for any organisation.
Are you a Diminisher or a Multiplier?
Timothy Lakeman 