Why do some leaders have this ability to multiply the skills of the people around them while others only stifle the intelligence of their employees?
In the preface to this book, Stephen R. Covey shares this memory of a leader who took his own confidence to a whole new level. “What did he know how to get so much out of me?” “, he wonders.
This question is at the heart of the book by Liz Wiseman, CEO of the research and development company Wiseman Group. In an age where business leaders often have to do more with less, the advantage belongs to “multipliers”, those beings who are able to get more from their employees than they thought they could give.
“There’s more intelligence in our businesses than we exploit,” says Liz Wiseman. What then is the great talent of the multiplier leader? He is not necessarily the “genius” of the group, but rather the “revealer” of geniuses. Rather than valuing his own intelligence by showing himself to be more brilliant than everyone else, he knows how to leverage the skills of the people who make up his team. “It’s not what you know that matters. What matters is the access you have to what others know. It’s not just about the intelligence of your team members, but how much of that intelligence you can extract and leverage,” the author writes.
These leaders are reasoning and “growth” oriented. “For them, their company is full of talented people who can contribute to the building at much higher levels,” says LizWiseman. They discover talents that are often hidden. “If reducers see the world of intelligence in black and white, multipliers see it in Technicolor. They believe in the ability of people to find solutions. “People are scrambling to work with them, knowing that this is how they will grow and succeed. Instead of acting like empire builders who acquire resources, multipliers are true “talent magnets”!
Beyond their management style, the multiplier knows how to cultivate an environment conducive to reflection, allowing audacity, experimentation and error. Moreover, he challenges his collaborators to go beyond their knowledge and seize the opportunities that present themselves, convinced that they will be ready to meet the challenges with all the necessary enthusiasm. Other strengths of this leader: he listens more than he speaks, he consults more than he decides alone, and he instills in his collaborators high expectations commensurate with the responsibilities he entrusts to them. In short, he knows how to increase their strength tenfold.
