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Perpetual: Reads | Multipliers

Our series of book recommendations to empower talent and fuel brands.

Multipliers

Why Perpetual recommends it

Liz Wiseman’s Multipliers draws a sharp and genuinely useful distinction between two types of leaders: Multipliers, who use their intelligence to amplify the intelligence and capability of everyone around them, and Diminishers, who unintentionally shrink it, often while believing they’re being helpful. Wiseman’s research is grounded in extensive interviews across a wide range of organisations and industries.

The book is at its most useful when it catalogues the specific, often well-intentioned behaviours that quietly diminish a team: the leader who jumps in with the answer before anyone else has a chance to think, the leader whose constant presence in every decision unintentionally signals that people can’t be trusted to decide alone, the leader whose rapid-fire ideas overwhelm rather than inspire contribution from others.

Wiseman contrasts these with Multiplier behaviours, asking questions that stretch people’s thinking rather than supplying the answer, deliberately creating space for others’ ideas before offering your own, and treating mistakes as an investment in someone’s growth rather than a cost to be minimised.

This is one of the most useful diagnostic lenses we bring into executive coaching, because most Diminishers genuinely believe they’re helping, and the shift usually starts with simply naming the pattern out loud.

  • Multipliers amplify the intelligence and capability of the people around them
  • Diminishers often shrink a team’s capability while believing they’re being helpful
  • Jumping in with the answer too fast is one of the most common diminishing habits
  • Deliberately creating space for others’ ideas is a learnable Multiplier behaviour

A useful self-check is noticing, in your next few meetings, how often you supply the answer versus ask a question that stretches someone else’s thinking first.

We give this book four and a half out of five stars.

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