Workplace Multiplier by Tola Akinsulire

July 21, 2026

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

Why less capable people get ahead

Howdy ,

Someone less capable than you just got something you deserved.

A role. A budget. A seat at the table you've been working toward for years.

You didn't say it out loud, of course. You're a team player. So you went quiet, worked harder, told yourself next time my results will speak for themselves.

Then it happened again.

I've sat in the rooms where these decisions actually get made. So let me be your doctor for a moment.

It's almost never luck. It's almost never favoritism. It's usually one of three things.

They control the story before you can write it

Making your work visible is not the same thing as owning what it means. Leave people to interpret it themselves and they'll reach for the safest read available…"reliable," not "ready for the next level."

A wrong narrative, repeated enough times, becomes your ceiling.

The people getting ahead of you aren't just doing good work. They're deciding what problem they're known for solving…before anyone else gets a vote.

They engineer proximity you're waiting to earn

You've been assuming proximity is a reward for performance. Do the work, get noticed, get invited. That's not how it works.

Proximity is a strategy…and the people ahead of you have been running it while you waited your turn.

So ask yourself: where are the informal, unscheduled conversations in your organisation? The ones before the meeting, where leadership actually thinks out loud.

Are you in the room for those? Not because someone invited you. Because you built your way in, before the opportunity opened.

They make themselves the safer bet

Here's the one that stings. Senior decision-makers aren't only asking who's best. They're asking who's the safest bet…and those two questions produce two different answers.

Your confidence reads as arrogance. Your directness reads as a management risk. Your high standards read as difficult to control at the next level.

Meanwhile, someone less sharp but more predictable than you gets the nod…not because they're better, but because betting on you looks expensive.

I am not telling you to dim yourself down. What I am telling you is this: find out what safety means to the specific person deciding your future, and give them that signal…without giving up an inch of your standard.

Three questions, one gap

Let me share the question I ask some of the leaders I coach. Think of one person right now. Less capable than you. Ahead of you anyway.

1. Do they have a clearer one-sentence story about what they stand for than you do?

2. Do they show up in more of the rooms where decisions actually form…by design, not by accident?

3. Are they easier for decision-makers to read than you are?

Wherever you hesitated, that's your gap. Not a verdict on your capability. A map.

None of this is luck. None of it is politics. It's three skills, and skills can be learned…starting with the one you can move on fastest, which is the story people tell about you.

So here's your one move this week.

Write one sentence…not your title, not your job description…that answers this: when my name comes up in a room I'm not in, what do I want the next sentence to be?

Then live into it. One conversation. One update. One moment where you prove the sentence true, instead of waiting for somebody else to write it for you.

Keep winning at work and in life.

Tola Akinsulire 
Your Strategic Workplace Mentor