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Is Your Know-It-All Boss Making You Less Intelligent?
The Monday Morning Manager #20
Shockingly, how your boss behaves towards you can affect your intelligence when you work for them.
In her book Multipliers, Liz Wiseman writes about how leaders who stimulate and grow their people can end up with a team whose IQ points have increased.
The opposite is true for leaders who are the only voice in the room. Wiseman dubs this type of leader a Diminisher, and their teams experience a drop in IQ.
In my 40 odd years in the workplace, I’ve had experience with both types of leaders.
Once, when a Diminisher boss arrived, I apparently became incompetent overnight.
My ideas were borderline insane, my emails were virtually illiterate, and my professionalism was non-existent. Only the new boss’s opinions were valuable, and anyone who disagreed was not fit for their role.
Eventually, this leader left the organization, and my new boss was thankfully a Multiplier.
My ability sky-rocketed to the surprise of senior leaders who had only known me as reporting to my old Diminisher boss.
I “came out of my shell” and “suddenly flourished,” and my new manager was credited with developing me. I was the flavor of…
