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How the best leaders make everyone else smarter.

And my journey of switching leadership styles to become the best leader possible.

When I first read Liz Wiseman's book Multipliers, it blew my mind.

This book changed my view on leadership completely.

During university, when I was studying computer science, group projects were a mess.

Most often, it ended in me taking the lead and doing most of it by myself.

My teammates were usually lethargic and got active only right before the deadline.

Then, it was a frantic crunch to catch up on all the lost time.

In meetings, I was the only one talking.

No wonder I was the only one who had prepared for the meeting.

And if my teammates talked, they wasted everyone's time with stupid questions.

I would have been better off on my own.

I would have been faster, with less organizational overhead and better results.

I was arrogant, stubborn, and selfish.

You can imagine what a pleasure it was for the rest of my team to work with me.

Reading Multipliers by Liz Wiseman whipped my ass good.

She called out all my bad leadership traits.

It was excruciating and humbling to figure out that the problem was always me.

I was a Diminisher, a leader who made everyone around them smaller to appear more prominent.

From that point on, I wanted to become a Multiplier.

I started to work on my Diminisher traits and nurture my Multiplier abilities.

I wanted to become a leader who amplifies everyone around me.

I wanted to get twice as much productivity out of my teams.

The best leaders are Multipliers.

Benefits of Multiplier Leadership

Liz Wiseman found several compelling effects that multipliers have on their teams:

Better outcomes by using the team's collective intelligence instead of only your own.
Twice the productivity by fully utilizing everyone's capabilities instead of holding them back.
Higher engagement and morale by making everyone feel valued and challenged.
Faster growth and development by actively developing the skills of your team.
Sustainable success by building a culture of continuous improvement and resilience.

I can confirm all of this from my own experiences.

The Five Types of Multipliers

There are five types of Multipliers.

Each of them has unique skills, characteristics, traits, and behaviours.

The best leaders master 2-3 of these Multiplier Types.

Additionally, the best leaders cut their Diminisher traits off the rest.

For maximum success, building a complementing leadership team makes sense.

My co-founder and I complemented each other very well in my last startup.

I love gamification, so I created the Multiplier Leadership Assessment to learn my level.

>>> Take the Multiplier Leadership Assessment.

1. Talent Magnet

The first multiplier type is the Talent Magnet.

A Talent Magnet has a constant stream of high-quality talent knocking at the door who want to work with them.

Additionally, talent magnets are excellent at retaining their team members.

The four practices of a Talent Magnet are:

Looking for talent everywhere; There are no walls or boundaries.
Figuring out what people are best at.
Utilizing people to their fullest.
Removing the blockers.

2. Liberator

Liberators create an intense but comfortable work climate that frees thinking.

The three practices of a Liberator are:

Creating a consistent and predictable space without hierarchies for others to shine.
Demanding peoples’ best work while separating effort from outcome.
Generating rapid learning cycles.

3. Challenger

The Challenger pushes the team to achieve more than they thought possible.

The three practices of a Challenger are:

Seeding opportunity by motivating and creating starting points.
Laying down the challenge by outlining the big goal and creating curiosity.
Generating belief by co-creating a path to the goal.

4. Debate Maker

The Debate Maker encourages constructive debate to arrive at the best decision together.

The three practices of a Debate Maker are:

Asking the right questions to the right people and outlining the decision to be made.
Creating safe, engaging, comprehensive, and fact-based debates.
Driving sound decision-making.

5. Investor

The Investor invests in their team by giving ownership and responsibility to them.

The three practices of the Investor are:

Defining and giving ownership over the goal.
Investing resources to back the team up.
Holding people accountable by not taking responsibility away from them.

Are You a Multiplier Leader?

Now you know the five types of Multiplier Leadership:

Talent Magnet
Liberator
Challenger
Debate Maker
Investor

What types of Multiplier leadership have you mastered already?

Where do you see the potential for improvement for yourself?

In which area might you even be hurting your team?

I created a self-assessment to find out for myself.

>>> Take the Multiplier Leadership Assessment.

My Multiplier Leadership Level is 7.9.

What is your Multiplier Leadership Level?

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Why Multiplier Leaders Get Double the Productivity From Their Teams