Yesterday I Was Impossible With My Team: The Daily Practice of Becoming a Multiplier

Yesterday I was impossible with my team in a meeting.

Not “challenging.” Not “direct.” Impossible.

This morning I checked my personality assessments, hoping for an excuse. What I found was an explanation.

96% of people are more agreeable than me. StrengthsFinder? Harmony dead last. Enneagram? Type 7. “The Enthusiast.” ADHD? Yes. Obviously.

If you’re wondering how someone scores rock-bottom on harmony while being classified as an enthusiast with ADHD, welcome to working with me.

The specific problem with high-capability leaders

I’m enthusiastic about potential. Deeply uncomfortable potential. And I want to talk about it right now, in detail, for the next three hours.

If there were a prize for “least likely to say what you want to hear,” I’d be on the podium. Possibly alone, because I’d have disagreed with the judges, hyperfocused for four hours, and come back to prove why their criteria were wrong.

Is it easy to work for me? No.

Am I learning? Every day. Clearly not fast enough.

Liz Wiseman’s Multipliers is my favourite leadership book. Her research haunts me. The difference between leaders who multiply intelligence and those who diminish it. The uncomfortable truth: many Diminishers are high-performers who accidentally suffocate their teams with their own capability.

That description hits close.

I think about this constantly. Am I multiplying or diminishing today? Yesterday, I was diminishing.

Understanding the Multiplier-Diminisher spectrum

Wiseman’s research identified two types of leaders. Multipliers get twice the capability from their teams compared to Diminishers. Not because they work people harder. Because they create environments where intelligence flourishes rather than shrinks.

Multipliers:

• Create space for others to think
• Ask questions more than they make statements
• Create safety for experimentation
• Give others ownership of results
• Expect their people to figure things out

Diminishers:

• Fill all the space with their own ideas
• Tell more than they ask
• Create pressure that stifles risk-taking
• Micromanage details
• Rescue people from challenges before they can grow

The uncomfortable insight: most Diminishers don’t mean to diminish. They’re often the smartest people in the room. They see answers quickly. They have high standards. They care deeply about outcomes.

Their intent is good. Their impact is destructive.

When I dominated yesterday’s meeting with my perspective, I wasn’t trying to diminish my team. I was trying to solve the problem. I saw what needed to happen. I was enthusiastic about the solution. I wanted to help.

But filling all the space with my thinking left no room for theirs. The team’s intelligence didn’t grow. It shrank. They became passengers in my process rather than drivers of their own.

The accidental Diminisher patterns I recognise in myself

Wiseman identifies specific “Accidental Diminisher” patterns. Reading them feels like looking in a mirror.

The Idea Guy: Generates so many ideas that the team can’t keep up. Every new direction feels like an indictment of the previous direction. The team learns to wait for the “real” answer rather than invest in any single idea.

I’m this person. My team has learned that my third idea is usually the one worth pursuing. But the cost of generating those first two ideas is real. It’s cognitive load they carry. It’s energy they spend translating my chaos.

The Rapid Responder: Responds so quickly to problems that others don’t get the chance to think. The team learns to bring problems to the leader rather than solving them independently.

I’m also this person. When someone shares a challenge, my brain immediately generates solutions. Sharing those solutions feels helpful. It feels efficient. But it teaches my team to outsource their thinking to me.

The Perfectionist: Sets such high standards that people are afraid to try. The feedback is always about what could be better, rarely about what’s working.

This one too. My low agreeableness means I see gaps more readily than successes. What feels to me like “raising the bar” can feel to my team like “never good enough.”

The Rescuer: Steps in to help so quickly that people never develop their own capability. The help feels supportive but creates dependency.

And this. When I see someone struggling, I want to help. But swooping in to fix things prevents the struggle that creates growth. My efficiency becomes their dependency.

What demanding leadership that multiplies actually looks like

Here’s what I’m learning: demanding and multiplying are not opposites.

I know what it feels like to be on the other side. I’ve had impossible bosses. Leaders who stretched me beyond what I thought my limits were. I questioned whether I belonged. Whether they saw something I couldn’t see, or had simply overestimated me.

I’m grateful for every single one of them.

They believed in a version of me that didn’t exist yet, and held me accountable to becoming it. They were Multipliers disguised as demanding.

The difference between demanding that multiplies and demanding that diminishes comes down to one question: Who’s doing the thinking?

Demanding Diminisher: “Here’s what I need you to do. Here’s how to do it. Here’s when it’s due.”

Demanding Multiplier: “Here’s the outcome I need. You figure out how to get there. I believe you can, and I’ll hold you accountable to delivering.”

Both set high expectations. Both create pressure. But one fills all the space with the leader’s thinking. The other creates space for the team’s thinking to expand.

The evidence of multiplication in my own team

I’ve watched people on this team do things they didn’t believe they could do.

Someone who joined uncertain became indispensable. They arrived thinking they were underqualified. Eighteen months later, they’re making decisions I couldn’t make as well. Not because I taught them everything. Because the role demanded growth and they rose to it.

Someone who’d never led, led. They weren’t looking for leadership. The situation required it. They stepped up, made mistakes, learned, and became something they hadn’t been before.

Someone who’d always followed, challenged. They’d spent their career executing other people’s ideas. Then they started pushing back on mine. That moment—when a team member first challenges your thinking—is evidence of multiplication. They’ve developed enough confidence in their own capability to disagree.

That growth came from being held to a standard that felt uncomfortable until it didn’t.

The daily practice of multiplying over diminishing

Knowing the difference between multiplying and diminishing doesn’t automatically change behaviour. It requires daily practice.

Before meetings, I ask myself: Am I going in with answers or questions? If I already know what I think should happen, I’m not creating space for others to think.

During meetings, I watch my talking ratio. If I’m talking more than 30% of the time, I’m probably filling space that should belong to others.

When someone brings a problem, I pause before responding. The pause gives them space to keep thinking. Often, they solve it themselves if I don’t rush to “help.”

When I notice myself getting excited about a solution, I translate it into a question. Instead of “We should do X,” I ask “What would happen if we tried X?” The question creates space. The statement fills it.

When I give feedback, I start with what’s working. This is hard for me. My brain naturally spots gaps. But leading with capability before challenge creates safety for growth.

None of this comes naturally. All of it requires attention.

The honest assessment of yesterday

Yesterday I walked into a meeting with ideas. Lots of them. I was excited about what I saw. I wanted to share.

I shared too much. I filled the space. My team listened more than they contributed. By the end, they were agreeing with me not because I’d convinced them but because I’d overwhelmed them.

That’s diminishing. Even with good intent.

The team still delivered. They always do. But I wonder what insights didn’t emerge because I was talking. I wonder what creativity didn’t surface because I’d already defined the direction. I wonder what capability didn’t develop because I solved instead of asked.

I can’t know what would have happened if I’d multiplied instead of diminished. But I know the potential was there. I left it on the table.

The ongoing work

To everyone building something alongside someone in the 4th percentile for agreeableness, dead last on Harmony, ADHD, still classified as “The Enthusiast,” and fighting daily to be a Multiplier: thank you.

I see what you’re becoming. I don’t always create the space for it. But I see it.

The work of leadership isn’t achieving perfection. It’s noticing when you’ve fallen short and doing better the next day. Yesterday I diminished. Today I’ll try to multiply. Tomorrow I’ll probably have to try again.

That’s not failure. That’s practice.

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Multiplier self-assessment questions

If you’re wondering whether you’re multiplying or diminishing, ask your team these questions. Then listen without defending.

1. When you bring me a problem, do you feel like you get space to think, or do I jump to solutions?
2. In meetings, do you feel like your ideas shape outcomes, or are we mostly implementing mine?
3. Do you feel challenged in a way that grows you, or pressured in a way that shrinks you?
4. When you’ve made mistakes, has my response made you more or less likely to take risks?
5. What’s one thing I do that diminishes your capability, even if I don’t intend to?

The last question is the hardest. It’s also the most useful.