Workplace Multiplier by Tola Akinsulire

August 25, 2026

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

Competence gets you considered. Trust gets you chosen.

Howdy ,

There is a point in a career when competence stops being the main question. Perhaps it has already happened to you.

Early on, your progress is largely tied to what you can do.

Can you analyze the problem? Can you deliver? Can you manage the team? Can you hit the number? Can you solve what is in front of you?

The better you get at those things, the more responsibility you receive.

Then something changes.

You reach a level where almost everyone around you is competent.

The people competing for bigger mandates have strong CVs, good results and years of experience.

Yet they do not all progress equally.

One person gets invited into the consequential meeting. Another gets the larger market. One gets introduced to the board. Another becomes the obvious successor.

One is given room to make decisions before they have proved every detail.

Another keeps being asked for more evidence.

Why?

Because at senior levels:

Competence gets you considered. Trust gets you chosen.

That distinction matters because many capable executives respond to stalled progression by trying to become even more competent.

Another qualification. More technical depth. More hours. More visible delivery.

None of those things are bad.

But they may be solving the wrong problem.

The person deciding whether to give you a larger mandate is no longer asking only: "Can this person perform?"

They are asking a more consequential question: "What happens if I put this in their hands?"

Will they exercise judgment? Will they tell me the truth when things go wrong? Will what they say today still mean the same thing when pressure rises tomorrow?

Will they protect the standard when doing so becomes politically or commercially inconvenient? Will they create confidence around them…or more work for everyone who has to manage them?

In other words: Can I rest?

My definition of trust is simple: Trust is the peace of mind that I will do what I said, the way I said it, every single time.

The phrase I keep returning to is peace of mind.

Because trust is not merely a positive opinion about your character.

It is accumulated confidence about what will happen when something consequential is placed in your hands.

That confidence changes executive economics.

People supervise less. They escalate less. They invite you earlier. They expose you to more sensitive information.

They recommend you into rooms where your CV alone could not take you. They give you responsibility before certainty is possible.

Trust reduces perceived risk. And reduced perceived risk creates access.

This also explains a frustrating career phenomenon.

You can be respected and still not be trusted enough for the next level.

No one needs to think badly of you.

They may genuinely like you. They may praise your work. They may even call you "high potential."

But when the moment comes to place greater consequence in someone's hands, another person gets chosen.

The gap is not always competence.

Sometimes there simply is not enough accumulated evidence for people to rest.

That is why executive development cannot stop at performance.

The deeper work is becoming someone whose word has weight, whose follow-through creates evidence, whose identity remains trustworthy under pressure and whose standards do not move with convenience.

Because eventually your career stops being defined only by what you can do.

It starts being defined by: What other people are prepared to trust you with.

So here is the question I would leave every ambitious executive with:

What do you want to be trusted with next?

And what evidence would make it easy for someone else to place that responsibility in your hands?

As always, keep winning at work and in life.

Tola Akinsulire

Your Strategic Workplace Mentor

P.S. If that is a live question for you right now, my inbox is open.