This week I attended a networking session where the book Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter was critiqued.  I was so intrigued by the content of this book, I have already downloaded it to my iPad.  The authors, Liz Wiseman and Greg McKeown, present two types of leaders in their book:  diminishers—those leaders who are absorbed in their own intelligence, stifle others and deplete the organization of critical intelligence and capability and multipliers—those genius-maker leaders who bring out the intelligence in others and build collective, viral intelligence in organizations.

Multipliers actually help people become smarter and more capable than they thought they could be.  I made an immediate connection to Daniel Pink’s book “Drive”.  He talks about the three motivators that highly effective leaders in highly effective companies employ—autonomy, mastery and purpose.

The person presenting the critique stated that he believed that diminishers can never become multipliers.  I do believe that diminishers cannot “fake” being a multiplier.  When they do, people see those new behaviors as insincere and manipulative. Some of the people we coach are diminishers or have strong diminishing behaviors.

So I am wondering if you think it is possible for a diminisher to truly become a multiplier?  If so, how do we guide that development as coaches?

by Edna Harris, PCC
Coaching for Results Global