What is a Multiplier in Leadership?

A "multiplier" in leadership refers to a leader who amplifies their team members' intelligence, skills, and capabilities. This concept, popularized by Liz Wiseman in her book Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter, contrasts with "diminishers," who unintentionally drain the talent and motivation from their teams.

Multipliers are characterized by their ability to create an environment where people feel empowered, encouraged to contribute their best ideas, and motivated to take ownership of their work. They invest in the growth of others, ask questions that challenge people to think deeply, and build a culture of collaboration. Essentially, they act as a catalyst, maximizing the collective power of their team.

When I started working with Robert Chatwani almost two years ago at Docusign , he quickly identified that my leadership style and skill set aligned with a multiplier. I had to look this concept up and read Liz Wiseman’s book to understand what this meant and why this was important to Robert and Docusign. Now that I have a better understanding, I have even sought to lean into this as a strength of mine. So, with that, I thought I’d share a bit about this leadership style and offer some ideas on how to identify these leaders in your organization and/or develop this style yourself.

First off, I wanted to define a multiplier further. Some key behaviors of multipliers include:

• Attracting and optimizing talent: They bring the right people on board and find ways to help them grow.
• Fostering a culture of debate: They encourage healthy discussions that help uncover the best ideas.
• Empowering decision-making: They push responsibility to others, allowing team members to take ownership.
• Challenging people with stretch opportunities: They believe in their team’s potential and set ambitious goals to help them achieve more.

Multipliers make everyone around them more capable, engaged, and successful, leading to higher performance and more innovation.

Conversely, a diminisher is a leader who unintentionally reduces their team's capability, creativity, and enthusiasm. Diminishers often believe that they need to be the smartest person in the room, which leads to behaviors that stifle the talent of others. Here are the key characteristics of diminishers as described by Wiseman:

• Empire Builder: Diminishers hoard resources and collect followers rather than nurture talent. They build large teams but fail to utilize their people’s skills effectively.
• Tyrant: They create a tense environment where people are afraid to make mistakes. Their approach is often harsh or intimidating, which keeps others on edge and discourages them from taking risks or sharing ideas.
• Know-It-All: Diminishers are inclined to showcase their intelligence rather than drawing out the intelligence of others. They like to have all the answers, often disregarding other perspectives, which can shut down creative thinking within their teams.
• Decision Maker: These leaders make all the critical decisions themselves, sometimes without even consulting the team. By centralizing decision-making, they deprive others of the opportunity to grow and learn through experience.
• Micromanager: Diminishers closely control their team’s work, getting involved in every detail. This undermines autonomy and signals a lack of trust in the capabilities of others.

As a result of these behaviors, diminishers tend to disempower their team members, resulting in lower engagement, reduced creativity, and limited growth. People working under diminishers often do just enough to meet expectations rather than being motivated to exceed them.

Multiplier and Diminisher Impact

In my career, I’ve worked with both multipliers and diminishers. Interestingly enough, I worked with one leader who actively transitioned from a diminisher to a multiplier during our time working together, partially because of feedback from myself and their direct leader (our CEO). This leader eventually became one of my favorite bosses, and even today, I celebrate how much of a multiplier this leader is.

One particular multiplier I’ve worked for is Daniel Incandela . He was my CMO at Conga when I was leading Product Marketing. He focused on empowering his leadership team to drive metric-based strategies and programs aligned with corporate KPIs. He didn’t come in and insist on his vision and use us as an execution, too. Instead, he encouraged us to use innovation and experiences to drive impact.

On the opposite side, I have worked with diminishers as well. One particular employee on my leadership team was a strong influencer in the organization as they had worked there for many years. They had created their internal empire, made it known that they knew more than anyone else about the company and the customer, became “confused” when information or strategy didn’t match their vision, and even created an environment where people were afraid to make mistakes (including me, their boss!) It was a tough time for everyone, and many people quit. It was tough for me as a leader to know how to handle a diminisher as I wasn’t even aware it was happening.?

Final Thoughts

As an organization seeks to find a balance between working styles, particularly for their leadership, they must identify what values they have as an organization and ensure that styles like a multiplier are understood and supported.?

Multipliers are often less common as this skill and style are not traditionally part of a job interview or part of an annual review. Making this part of a traditional employee review should be something that leaders should implement. And these skills should be identified and nurtured.?

Diminishers are often promoted because they can “get things done,” but at what cost? Short-term gains can have lasting effects on culture, employee productivity and loyalty, and ultimately, the bottom line. An unknowing or allowed toxic culture will eventually impact customer satisfaction and innovation through top talent churn.

Have you ever worked for a multiplier? What about a diminisher? How did either make you feel?

I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments section.