Leadership Lessons: The Liberator

Source: Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter-Liz Wiseman and Greg McKeown

Leaders who are liberators:

• Put other people on the stage
• Identify hard opinions vs. soft opinions-soft opinions are for others to discuss and think about for themselves
• Understand that formal hierarchies can suppress voices and ideas of those at the bottom.
• Operate as a peer or create an environment of freedom to express you view
• Create an intense environment

Positive Culture Created by a Liberator

• Ideas are generated with ease.
• People learn rapidly and adapt to new environments.
• People work collaboratively.
• Complex problems get solved.
• Difficult tasks get accomplished.

Three Practices of a Liberator

1. Create Space

• Listen more/Talk Less
• Be consistent and predictable-allows other to know when they can contribute and creates safety
• Level the Playing Field
• Stay out of the details

2. Demand People's Best Work

• Hold people to their best work, not outcomes (can't control outcomes-causes unnecessary stress)

3. Generate Rapid Learning Cycles

• Give permission to make mistakes.
• Admit and share personal mistakes.
• Insist on learning from mistakes.

Label Opinions

Hard-Where you have a clear and potentially emphatic point

Soft-Where you have a perspective to offer and ideas for someone else to consider