Leadership Matters - October 2013

Leadership Thoughts: Multiplier or Diminisher? ___________________

(Attracts talented people and uses them at their highest point of contribution)  The Tyrant (Creates a tense environment that suppresses people’s thinking capability) vs. The Liberator (Creates an intense environment that requires people’s best thinking and work)  The Know-It-All (Gives directives that showcase how much they know) vs. The Challenger (Defines an opportunity that causes people to stretch)  The Decision Maker (Makes

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diminishing that fact of life or choosing not to acknowledge the difficulties in turn diminishes the efforts of the people actually implementing a plan or project. Why try hard if the boss thinks it’s easy? In her book, Wiseman cites a study by Carol Dweck of Stanford University. The study gave a series of progressively harder puzzles to children. Her research found that a group of kids was praised for their intelligence stagnated for fear of failure or reaching the limit of their intelligence. Another group praised for their hard work actually increased

centralized, abrupt decisions that confuse the organization) vs. The Debate Maker (Drives sound decisions through rigorous debate.  The Micromanager (Drives results through their personal involvement) vs. The Investor (Gives other people the ownership for results and invests in their success) Educator and author Stephen R. Covey, who died last year, wrote the book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People , wrote the foreword to Wiseman’s book. In that foreword, he addressed the issue of “new demands, insufficient resources” -- a problem facing schools just as much as business. Covey wrote: “At a time when many organizations do not have the

their ability to reason and solve problems. Her book includes a section titled “A Tale of Two Managers.” Both were geniuses. One, George Schneer, was a division manager for Intel, and one of his workers, Vikram, described what it was like to work for Schneer. “I was a rock star

“There are accidental diminishers, leaders who,

despite their good intentions, drain instead of amplify the innovation, productive effort and collective intelligence of the people around them.” — Liz Wiseman, author of best- selling book Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter.

around George. He made me. Because of him I transitioned from an individual contributor to a big- time manager. Around him, I felt like a smart SOB – everyone felt like that. He got 100 percent from me. It was exhilarating.” Vikram’s other manager was equally brilliant but had a very different style. “He was very, very smart. But people had a way of shutting down around him. He just killed our ideas. In a typical meeting, he did about 30 percent of the talking and left little space for others. He gave a lot of feedback – most of it was about how bad our ideas were,” Vikram said. Based on her research, Wiseman compared “Diminishers” to “Multipliers” in what she referred to in her book as “The Five Disciplines of the Multipliers.” They included:  The Empire Builder (Hoards resources and underutilizes talent) vs. The Talent Magnet

luxury of adding or transferring resources to tackle major challenges, they must find the capabilities within their current ranks. The ability to extract and multiply the intelligence that already exists in the organization is red-hot relevant.” Wiseman made it clear that being a multiplier does not equate to being soft as a manager. She used a William Tell analogy to differentiate between placing employees under pressure to perform versus placing them under stress. In that analogy, the person under pressure is William Tell. The one under stress is the guy with an apple on his head, the one who has zero control over the outcome. Leadership Thoughts will be a monthly feature in the newsletter. If you would like to submit a column, please send it to mchamness@iasaedu.org.

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