Liz Wiseman and Greg Mckeown, Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter. HarperBusiness, 2010.
Referenced in: Empowering Leadership
LifeandLeadership.com Summary
This is an excellent discussion of the types of leaders who bring out the best in others, the Multpliers, vs. the Diminishers who use their position to overly-manage or intimidate others. It is a popular resource today on Empowerment in general, but also as a guide to leading the Millennial generation. From their study of 150 Multiplying leaders (listed in the appendix), the authors lay out five disciplines that distinguish them from Diminishers:
- Talent Magnet – Attracts talented people and uses them to their highest point of contribution, vs. the Diminisher, an empire-builder who hoards resources and underutilizes talent.
- Liberator – Creates an intense environment that requires people’s best work and thinking, vs. the Diminisher, a tyrant who creates a tense environment that suppresses people’s thinking and capability.
- Challenger – Defines an opportunity that causes people to stretch, vs. the Diminisher, a know-it-all who gives directives that showcase how much they know.
- Debate Maker – Drives sound decisions through rigorous debate, vs. the Diminisher, a decision-maker who makes centralized, abrupt decisions that confuse the organization.
- Investor – Gives other people the ownership for results and invests in their success, vs. the Diminisher, a micromanager who drives results through their own personal involvement.
Publisher’s Description
Are you a genius or a genius maker?
We’ve all had experience with two dramatically different types of leaders. The first type drain intelligence, energy, and capability from the ones around them and always need to be the smartest ones in the room. These are the idea killers, the energy sappers, the diminishers of talent and commitment. On the other side of the spectrum are leaders who use their intelligence to amplify the smarts and capabilities of the people around them. When these leaders walk into a room, lightbulbs go off over people’s heads, ideas flow, and problems get solved. These are the leaders who inspire employees to stretch themselves to deliver results that surpass expectations. These are the Multipliers. And the world needs more of them, especially now, when leaders are expected to do more with less.
In this engaging and highly practical book, leadership expert Liz Wiseman and management consultant Greg McKeown explore these two leadership styles, persuasively showing how Multipliers can have a resoundingly positive and profitable effect on organizations—getting more done with fewer resources, developing and attracting talent, and cultivating new ideas and energy to drive organizational change and innovation.
In analyzing data from more than 150 leaders, Wiseman and McKeown have identified five disciplines that distinguish Multipliers from Diminishers. These five disciplines are not based on innate talent; indeed, they are skills and practices that everyone can learn to use—even lifelong and recalcitrant Diminishers. Lively, real-world case studies and practical tips and techniques bring to life each of these principles, showing you how to become a Multiplier too, whether you are a new or an experienced manager. Just imagine what you could accomplish if you could harness all the energy and intelligence around you. Multipliers will show you how.
About the Author
Greg McKeown is the CEO of THIS Inc., a leadership and strategy design agency headquartered in Silicon Valley. He has taught at companies that include Apple, Google, Facebook, Salesforce.com, Symantec, Twitter and VMware. He was recently named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.
He has conducted research in the field of collective intelligence, leadership and human systems. He is the author of the Harvard Business Review blog “The One Thing CEOs Need to Learn from Apple.” He is also the Coauthor of the Wall Street Journal bestseller “Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter” (Harper Business, June 2010), “Bringing Out the Best in Your People” (Harvard Business Review, May 2010) and “Are You An Accidental Diminisher?” (Ivey Business Journal, August 2010).
Prior to this research and teaching, Greg worked for Heidrick & Struggles’ Global Leadership Practice assessing senior executives. His work included being a part of a year long project for Mark Hurd (then CEO of Hewlett Packard) assessing the top 300 executives at HP.
Greg is an active social innovator. He currently serves as a Board Member for the Washington D.C. policy group, Resolve (KONY2012), and as a mentor with 2 Seeds a non-profit incubator for agricultural projects in Africa. And he has been a guest speaker at non-profit groups that have included The Kauffman Fellows, St. Jude and the Minnesota Community Education Association.
Originally from London, England, he now lives in Menlo Park, California with his wife, Anna, and their four children. Greg holds an MBA from Stanford University.
Liz Wiseman is president of The Wiseman Group, a leadership research and development center headquartered in Silicon Valley. She advises senior executives and leads strategy and leadership forums for executive teams worldwide. A former executive at Oracle Corporation, she worked as the Vice President of Oracle University and as the global leader for Human Resource Development for 17 years. Liz is the author of Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter.
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