Tom Finegan - Amplifiers

We can also turn to areas outside the corporate world to gather insight into good followership and how that leads to Amplifier behavior. Imagine an electorate who can honestly face facts, sort through fact and fiction, and make truly informed and unemotional decisions. Far too often, we replay or echo information we want to believe, think we should believe (for countless reasons), or are afraid to change our old ideals and don't take the time to critically think for ourselves. Today's political stage across the world is very polarized. This is not productive. But compounded with misinformation and delusional thinking throughout the political spectrum, we end up with suboptimal results. We fail to realize that the pursuit of this misinformation and blind support of a politician or political party hollows our intellectual core and renders us as puppets. More critical, independent, challenging, rigorous thinking is needed because we are assaulted with so much information. We need more true Amplifiers who are not afraid to seek a 360-degree view of the truth, speak truth to power, and redirect the polarization to productive means.

Over the years, I've been a student of leadership and followership and their impact on corporate performance. The theme that has emerged from this study is that it takes a special blend of a professional—an Amplifier—to create and wield the power to magnify corporate outcomes. These people possess the unique combination of strong leadership and followership skills. This book is largely aimed at a corporate audience, but it applies to many other social, political, religious, athletic, and philanthropic organizations. 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 2of 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 3of 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.

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.