Workplace Multiplier by Tola Akinsulire

December 19, 2025

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

How Do You See Yourself

Howdy ,

On Tuesday, I introduced the five professional profiles based on Foundation, Edge, and Scale development.

Today, a harder question: Can you accurately identify which one you are?

Here's what I've learned after two decades of career development work:

Self-diagnosis is terrible.

Not because people are dishonest. But because we have massive blind spots about our own patterns.

Here are some case studies:

The executive who insisted she had a strong Foundation. Her team privately described her as "a pressure volcano, you never know when she'll explode."

The manager who claimed excellent Scale capability. His direct reports did all the work while he took credit.

The professional convinced she was a Breakthrough Leader. She'd been doing the same role for six years with zero scope expansion.

We consistently:

•    Overestimate our strengths

•    Underestimate our gaps

•    Confuse effort with effectiveness

•    Mistake good intentions for actual capability

This isn't a character flaw. It's human nature.

You can't see your own patterns clearly because you're inside them. It's like trying to read the label from inside the bottle.

So how do you actually figure out your profile?

Three ways:

1. Ask people who work with you - They see patterns you don't (if they'll be honest)

2. Look at your results, not your intentions - Where do you consistently struggle? That's your gap.

3. Get external assessment - Someone trained to see these patterns objectively

This is partly why I'm hosting the 2026 Breakthrough Plan workshop on Saturday, January 3rd.

Not to lecture you about profiles. But to help you accurately diagnose where you actually are, not where you think you are or wish you were.

Because developing the wrong dimension wastes the time you don't have.

And developing dimensions in the wrong sequence creates problems worse than the ones you started with.

Look forward to seeing you at the workshop

Keep Winning at Work and in Life

Tola Akinsulire

Your Strategic Workplace Mentor