
2. The Liberator: Creates a climate of safety and ambition that both invites and demands people’s best thinking and work.
3. The Challenger: Defines an opportunity that causes people to stretch.
4. The Debate Maker: Drives sound decisions through rigorous debate.
5. The Investor: Delivers extraordinary results again and again without direct management. Let’s explore just two of these disciplines as they apply to teachers and instructional leaders and coaches: Liberator and Challenger
In Wiseman’s presentation she discussed two teachers as examples of leaders who were multipliers. They maximized the capabilities of their students.
Liberators create an intense environment that requires students’ best. Thinking of these classrooms, I envision lots of problem based approaches… especially REAL problems…often problems that the students have identified as worth solving. As a Challenger this multiplier teacher limits his or her help to just the right touch that keeps a student struggling but not giving up.
The diminisher teacher is likely creating a tense environment…perhaps trying to motivate effort more with grades and test. Telling students what they need to know or do to be successful. These teachers are unlikely to learn from or with their students.
Being a multiplier is a great goal for instructional coaches. Too often teachers perceive a coach as one who should have the solution to the teacher’s problems or the person who will take the student, fix him, and bring him back. If coaches take the role of problem- solver, they will become diminishers. Wiseman suggests that diminishers give directions that feature “how much they know” (a Know-It-All)…a big mistake for coaches.
She suggests that multipliers are Investors who give the ownership of the results to others and invest in their success…an ideal image for successful coaches.
December 18th, 2011 at 5:02 pm
Hi Steve, I love your blog. Your post reminds me of a comment a colleague said to me. She said “a good leader empowers others, they down power over people.” To bring out the best in others means entrusting and encouraging others. The Christian model is to be a servant leader. To serve others, so they can be their best. I think I’ll buy this book “Multipliers.” Thanks