Are you a Multiplier or a Diminisher?

According to the book, Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter by Liz Wiseman and Greg McKeown, various forms of leadership can either help or hinder the people they are managing. Leaders are divided into two categories known as the Multipliers and Diminishers. Few traits will help you identify the group in which you fall as a leader:

• Empire Builder: Hoard and underutilize talent 

• Tyrant: Create stress that stops thinking 

• Know-it-all: Tell people what to do 

• Decision Maker: Decide (then debate)

• Micromanager: Manage every detail 

• Talent Magnet: Attract and optimize talent

• Liberator: Create space for the best thinking 

• Debate Maker: Debate (then decide)

• Investor: Instil ownership and accountability 

While both talent magnets and Empire Builders attract ‘A’ talent, what differentiates them is what they do with the talent once it’s in the door. Talent magnets don’t run out of fashion by moving their people on to bigger, better opportunities, as there is always a pool of talent wanting to get into their organizations. 

As per a research study conducted by BTS on the impact of multiplying and diminishing leaders, multiplying leader behaviors believe that people are smart and can get things done. Diminishing leader behaviors express an opinion that the team cannot succeed without strong oversight from the leader. Under multiplying leaders, employees accessed about 45% of their potential intelligence, and under multiplying leaders, they obtained 96%. 

Diminishing leaders harness less than half of their team’s potential intelligence and reinforce the belief that the team has limited abilities. The team picks up on their leaders' belief, and the outcome is a vicious cycle of low expectations breeding low performance. Both the diminishing leader and the team contribute far less than the potential intelligence to the business. 

There are a vast majority of accidental diminishers as well. These are leaders with the best of intentions, good people who think they are doing a good job leading. Often they are the ones who have been promoted into management, for their intellectual merit and are assumed to have all the right solutions. Such a hierarchy is inherently diminishing and causes people to shut down and comply; thus, many well-intended leaders accidentally decrease the smarts of their people. Here are the popular types of accidental diminishers: 

Wiseman’s research has shown that diminishing leaders can master the art of becoming highly effective Multipliers as well. Start with these three simple steps: 

Multiplying leaders, along with those who were former diminishers, experience the cycle of high expectations and empowerment. This leads to team growth, and it reinforces both the leader’s and the team’s belief that the team members are smart and capable. Organizations under multiplying leaders have reported higher levels of innovation and experimentation, agility within teams, confidence and empowerment and small teams outperforming larger teams across a variety of metrics. 

(The article is based on a masterclass by Siddharth Yereddi, Director, BTS, on Unlocking the intelligence within your teams from People Matters L&D Conference 2018)