Amplifiers. Tom Finegan
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For organizations to succeed, they need true Amplifiers. Amplifiers are the people who intuitively know how to simultaneously influence up, lead others, and execute the mission of the firm. Although some people are natural Amplifiers, we have found the ability to magnify corporate outcomes can be enhanced by developing and nurturing Amplifier styles, motives, and traits. Having worked with numerous companies, large and small, I have been able to see their management teams up close and personal. We have helped to create and execute their business strategies. Whether these companies were winners or losers may have depended in part on their product offerings and the markets they serve, but their success is largely based on the strength of their human capital—their people.
Most people believe that in order to be successful, they must be a leader. That is categorically false. Most successful people are followers. But the magic happens when an individual is a highly effective leader and a highly capable follower. This produces the Amplifier. True Amplifiers are the key to success for great companies. They magnify corporate culture, get the most out of teams, increase the impact of organizations, and turn up the volume on positive change within their companies and society.
It has been fun for me to see and work with individuals who were earmarked as “HiPos” or “high-potential employees” and to see how the organizations groomed them in feeder roles and offered them increasing responsibilities. At the time, I knew these individuals were special, but I always attributed that to their leadership capabilities. This was only true in part. The other part, and some might argue the more important part, is their followership ability and functional job competence. The rare breed of great leader and great follower combined produces true Amplifiers. True Amplifiers are the special employees in great companies that actually make them great.
The book is organized into three main sections. In part 1, we introduce the concept of Amplifiers and why they are so important for corporate success. We then take a deeper dive into the differences and mistakes people make by confusing leadership with titled executives or bosses. When analyzing these differences, we explore the difference and common misunderstanding between leadership and management. Then we take a deeper dive into followership and subordinates to better understand the value of followership in corporate success.
Part 2 of the book focuses on finding and developing Amplifiers in your company. We review how “talent scouting” misses the mark in most companies and lay out several strategies to better find and develop potential Amplifiers throughout the company. We thoroughly analyze leadership, followership, and Amplifier styles, motives, and traits in order to create specific development programs to enhance these characteristics throughout the organization. Throughout the section, several examples of Amplifiers who have had successful careers are highlighted along with their secrets and suggestions on what it takes to be an Amplifier.
In part 3 of the book, we explore how Amplifiers magnify the power of teams and increase the impact of corporate performance for its stakeholders. We dig deeper into the Amplifier effect on corporate strategy and how Amplifiers turn up the volume on positive change and corporate racial justice. Several examples highlighting the positive impact of Amplifiers and negative ramifications on corporate outcomes when there is a lack of Amplifiers can be found throughout this section.
Finally, we close the book with how Amplifiers can amplify life beyond work and create a lasting impact on countless people with whom they interact.
Throughout the book, I use my experience and draw from the collective experiences of my colleagues in the firm. Therefore, there are times where I use first-person references, in other cases I use we. I also want to respect the emerging thinking regarding gender pronouns and refrain from using he, his, she, or her and use they, their, or them as a singular, nongender version of the pronoun.
1 True Amplifiers: Leaders, Bosses, Followers, and Subordinates
The key to unlocking organizational success lies in discovering and deploying the Amplifiers in your company. Amplifiers know how to increase the impact for all key stakeholders through the power of example and by bringing out the best in their colleagues who surround them. These Amplifiers have the power to turn up the volume to enable transformation efforts to be successful or to affect the positive change that a company is seeking for long-term and sustainable health.
Leadership and followership are compared to each other as if they are two different sides of the same coin. Common thinking suggests someone is either a leader or a follower. We don't often see them as two separate dimensions on differing axes. When we juxtapose leaders and bosses on the one axis, and subordinates and followers on the other, we see a different view on effectiveness. Amplifiers exist at the intersection of great leadership and great followership. When deployed effectively throughout the organization, they magnify the power of the teams that they are either assigned to or with whom they interact.
For the purposes of this book, we use the following definitions to frame the discussion. You will notice that our definitions, especially that of leader, differ from the common search definition on Google, “the person who leads or commands a group, organization, or country.”1
Our analysis does not focus on job performance skills or proficiency of the individuals. Our work focuses on the leadership and followership attitudes that drive employee engagement and create long-term differentiated and sustainable cultures. We assume that the capabilities of the individual workers are that they are trained, competent, and perform the expected job duties commensurate with their position. We recognize this is not always the case, but that is not in the scope of our analysis.
| Leader | A person who uses their influence, example, or persuasion to cause others to follow them |
| Titled Executive/Boss | A person who is in charge of or commands a group, team, or function |
| Follower | A person who willingly goes along with and accepts direction from a leader |
| Subordinate | A person lower in rank or position who complies with directives of a superior |
In this book, we make an important distinction between leaders and bosses, but not simply by juxtaposing leadership skills with management skills. Instead, we view leaders and bosses (or titled executives) as different ends of the same leadership continuum. They may hold the exact same job title and have the same responsibilities, but they may operate on different ends of the leadership continuum. Similarly, we view followers and subordinates as two ends to the followership continuum. Leaders are usually also bosses, and followers are usually subordinate to their leaders. The distinguishing factors that push them to one end of the continuum or the other are their individual styles, motives, and traits. These dynamics drive how they interact with others to get work done.
Most people think about leadership and followership as two ends of a continuum. However, in Figure 1.1, we show a matrix of leadership and followership behaviors. For the purposes of uncovering and discovering true Amplifiers in an organization, we map leaders and bosses on the same continuum on the vertical axis. We also map followers and subordinates on the same continuum on the horizontal axis. Note the intersection is slightly off-center because most organizations have a higher concentration of leaders and followers.