The Multiplier Effect: How Great Leaders Make Everyone Smarter

In this powerful and thought-provoking episode of The Athletics of Business, Ed Molitor sits down with Liz Wiseman, celebrated leadership researcher, bestselling author of Multipliers, Rookie Smarts, and Impact Players, and CEO of The Wiseman Group. Liz shares transformative insights from her research on leadership effectiveness, accidental diminishing, and how to unlock the full intelligence and potential of teams.

She opens up about her early career at Oracle, her rookie mindset, and how feeling like an underdog led to a lifelong pursuit of discovering what truly makes great leaders. This episode is a masterclass in how to lead by amplifying others.

Our Guest

Liz is the author of New York Times bestseller Multipliers and Wall Street Journal bestsellers Rookie Smarts and Impact Players. She is a researcher and executive advisor, who teaches leadership to executives around the world, and the CEO of The Wiseman Group, a leadership research and development firm headquartered in Silicon Valley, California. 

Liz is a former executive at Oracle Corporation, where she worked as the Vice President of Oracle University and as the Global Leader for Human Resource Development. She is a frequent guest lecturer at Brigham Young University and Stanford University. Liz has received the top achievement award for leadership from Thinkers50 and has consistently been named one of the world’s top 50 management thinkers.

 

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• The difference between Multipliers and Diminishers and how both show up in everyday leadership

• Why accidental diminishing is more common (and dangerous) than you think

• Why sharing your own diminishing tendencies with your team builds trust

• The five disciplines of Multipliers and how to practice each one with intention

• The link between psychological safety and high expectations (safety + stretch)

• How to create debate-driven decision-making that builds buy-in and clarity

• What leaders get wrong about “helping” and how to avoid over-functioning

• How Liz sees empathy, evidence, and honesty as vital to coaching and culture

• The surprising lesson Liz learned leading a third-grade book discussion

• How Liz’s early career at Oracle shaped her view on vulnerability, rookie smarts, and reaching out

 

Resources & Links

Liz Wiseman

• Website: https://thewisemangroup.com/who-we-are/our-team/liz-wiseman/

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lizwiseman

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bylizwiseman/?hl=en

• Twitter/X: https://x.com/LizWiseman

• Amazon (Books): https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B00369WNUW

 

Ed Molitor

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/themolitorgroup/

• Website: https://www.themolitorgroup.com/

 

In this episode:

• [00:00:00] Introduction to Liz Wiseman

• [00:02:55] Liz’s unexpected path into leadership and why “being just smart enough” mattered

• [00:05:04] From Oracle’s hiring model to discovering how smart leaders can shut down talent

• [00:08:49] Building Oracle University, sweatshirts, Latin mantras, and global rollout

• [00:13:08] Why vulnerability wasn’t a buzzword, but honesty was everything

• [00:16:34] Learning to let others take the big shots

• [00:17:21] The 5 disciplines of Multipliers and why they’re simple but powerful

• [00:20:11] Creating intensity, not tension as a Liberator

• [00:24:07] The accidental diminisher: over-helping, over-optimism, and over-energy

• [00:28:56] The safety + stretch equation: why people thrive when both are present

• [00:31:22] Leading powerful debates on how to ask for evidence and invite everyone in

• [00:38:33] What Liz learned from teaching 3rd graders to defend Jack and the Beanstalk

• [00:42:20] Why micromanaging limits performance and how Investors flip the script

• [00:47:16] What it means to give someone “51% of the vote and 100% of the accountability”

• [00:50:22] Being a diminisher to one person and a multiplier to another how it happens

• [00:54:46] The fastest way to change your leadership? Stop doing it in secret