Workplace Multiplier by Tola Akinsulire

April 16, 2026

Welcome to the Workplace Multiplier newsletter. Published Monday to Friday, equipping you to achieve your professional goals faster and without burnout or overwhelm.

How to audit your team's capacity before the next decision forces your hand

Howdy ,

Most leaders only think about capacity when a role opens up.

By then, the pressure is already on. You are making a judgment call under time constraints, with limited information, and organisational politics in the room.

There is a better way to run this.

Here is a simple capacity audit you can run on your current team…not when a role opens, but right now, in an ordinary week, before the stakes are high.

Ask three questions for each of your direct reports.

First: Can this person think at the next level?

Not "are they good at their current job"…that is a capability question. But when they are in a room where the complexity is higher than their current role demands, what happens?

Do they go quiet? Do they default to what they know? Or do they engage, ask the right questions, and hold the ambiguity without flinching?

Capacity shows up most clearly at the edges of someone's comfort zone. Put people there deliberately…in meetings, in conversations, in projects…and watch what happens.

Second: What is their ceiling telling you?

Every person has a level at which their performance starts to plateau or fracture. The question is whether that ceiling is fixed or whether it is still moving.

A person whose ceiling is moving…even slowly…has capacity being built. A person who has been at their ceiling for eighteen months without movement is showing you something important. That is not a failure. It is information.

Third: What season is this person in?

This is the question most leaders skip entirely. Just as organisations have seasons...expansion, cruising, consolidation…so do individuals.

Someone in a season of personal disruption, a health issue, a family transition, carries a different effective capacity than their baseline.

That is temporary. But confusing a seasonal dip with a permanent ceiling is one of the most expensive misreads a leader can make.

Run this audit quarterly. Not as a formal process…as a thinking discipline. Fifteen minutes per person, three questions.

The leaders who make the best people decisions are not the ones with the best instincts.

They are the ones who have been paying attention long before the decision arrives.

As always, keep winning at work and in life.

Tola Akinsulire

Your Strategic Workplace Mentor