158: Multipliers — How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter | with Liz Wiseman

Are you a genius or a genius-maker? We’ve all had experience with two dramatically different types of leaders. The first type drains intelligence, energy, and capability from the people around them and always needs to be the smartest person 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, light bulbs go on 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 today’s episode, Jesse’s guest Liz Wiseman discusses 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.

Jesse and Liz talk about:

The five key areas where Multipliers and Diminishers differ,

How Multipliers manage to get so much brain power from their people,

How to know if you are an “accidental” Diminisher — despite good intentions, you’ve been accidentally diminishing the people on your team — and what to do about it,

Dealing with Diminishers,

Becoming a Multiplier, and

Building a Multiplier Culture.

Liz Wiseman teaches leadership to executives and emerging leaders around the world. She is the author of three best-selling books, including the newly expanded second edition of Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter. Her other books are Rookie Smarts: Why Learning Beats Knowing in the New Game of Work, which we discussed in episode 104, and The Multiplier Effect: Tapping the Genius Inside Our Schools.

Liz is president of The Wiseman Group, a leadership research and development firm headquartered in Silicon Valley. Some of her recent clients include: Apple, Disney, eBay/PayPal, Facebook, GAP, Google, Microsoft, Nike, Roche, Salesforce.com, and Twitter.

Previously, she was an executive at Oracle Corporation, where she worked over the course of 17 years as the Vice President of Oracle University and as the global leader for Human Resource Development.

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

Website: thewisemangroup.com

Book: Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter

Podcast: Rookie Smarts: Why Learning Beats Knowing

Quiz: Are you an Accidental Diminisher?

Webinar: Multipliers

Twitter: @lizwiseman

Facebook: /multipliersbooks

LinkedIn: /MultipliersLeadershipNetwork

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