Leadership Minute: Liz Wiseman on Building a Team of Multipliers

Liz Wiseman, former leadership development guru at Oracle, shares tips for developing exceptional team members.

Recently, I had the pleasure of hosting a private seminar with Liz Wiseman for Friday Forward Foundation Members. Liz was foundational to the development of Oracle University, one of the tech industry’s top leadership training programs, and she is the NYT bestselling author of a number of books on leadership and talent development, including Multipliers, which she discussed in her talk.

As Liz explained, team members often fall into one of two groups—multipliers and diminishers.

• Multipliers see intelligence as fluid and expandable. They challenge people to stretch beyond their perceived limits, ask probing questions, and encourage broad participation. These leaders catalyze a cycle of learning and performance that fuels innovation and collective excellence.

• Diminishers often operate under the assumption that intelligence is scarce. They tend to dominate conversations, insist on being the smartest person in the room, and micromanage. This approach inadvertently suppresses others’ contributions, leaving teams underutilized and disengaged.

Needless to say, it’s important to not only be a multiplier yourself, but to cultivate a team of multipliers as well. Liz shared valuable tactics for doing that in her talk, which offered a wealth of knowledge you can implement right away.

Check out the recording below: