Helping Others Shine: The Rewards of Multiplier Leadership

Why are some leaders able to build great teams? Teams that know how to work well together in an intelligent, collective way? And why are others able to grow companies, but not the people around them?

These are some of the questions author Liz Wiseman set out to answer when she wrote Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter. Along with her co-author Greg McKeown, Wiseman explored how effective leaders bring out the best in others, building cultures where the collective intelligence of teams is nurtured, and where team members feel free to speak up and can do their best thinking. She called these leaders "multipliers" because they amplify the capabilities of the people around them.

This month, Multipliers celebrates its 10th anniversary of publication. You can measure the book’s impact in terms of sales—more than 400,000 to date. But I think its impact is best understood not just as a function of its reach, but a function of its timelessness. In the past ten years, there has been a great deal of progress made in the theory and practice of team building and talent development, and today the consensus aligns almost perfectly with the theory of multiplier leadership. Wiseman and McKeown were ahead of their time.

I think a lot about team and culture building, particularly while teaching a class on corporate entrepreneurship at MIT. We've discussed how important it is for leaders to take ownership of building culture and talent, and how doing so tends to have a positive, lasting impact—the multipliers Wiseman writes about.

It starts with hiring. While everyone wants to tap people who have some expertise and a track record of success, I've found that other attributes are just as important. I also look for a sense of humor and comfort with ambiguity, traits that aren't always obvious in résumés. I try to assess potential, to figure out how people might stretch and grow as members of a team—which Wiseman refers to as seeing prospective talent "in Technicolor." People's hunger for development, to continuously learn, is of utmost importance to me.

But identifying potential is one thing; nurturing it is another. Doing so takes meaningful investment of time and commitment. Multiplier leaders understand that helping teams learn faster and win the knowledge game requires giving colleagues the opportunity to express their opinions, answer challenging questions, and take risks. Risk taking can certainly change a career. And encouraging people to take on unexpected roles can help team members realize their potential.

There's another side to the coin, too. As important as it is for leaders to learn how to be multipliers, we need to be mindful of behaviors and attitudes that might have the opposite effect. Wiseman calls these "accidental diminishers." She jokes that she struggles to keep her own inner diminisher caged. None of us is off the hook: She believes that there are diminishers lurking in everyone. (Here's a quiz that will help you determine if you have this behavior. Have fun discovering!)

I've found that reflecting on my own tendencies helps me to figure out whether I'm really helping to multiply the talents of the individuals I have the privilege of working with closely. During team meetings, I ask myself: Am I allowing others to get a word in, allowing them to voice their opinions? Am I giving people a chance to shine? That keeps me focused on liberating an individual's and a team's best thinking—and there's no better use of our time than that! The impact it has on productivity and intelligence in organizations is undeniable, infectious, and builds individual and collective confidence.

Multiplier leadership may sound like just another management technique, but it's incredibly valuable to organizations. And I'm personally committed to it because of how deeply fulfilling it is as a leader to help individual team members find their voice, discover new talents, and take ownership and pride in their new ideas. There's no greater satisfaction than helping someone grow and watching them achieve their full potential. It's a joyful kind of thrill—and it's available to anyone who's willing to multiply.