The Calabash Can Only Hold So Much: On Capacity, Capability & Leadership
For a long time, I thought good leadership meant being responsive.
A problem appeared? I handled it.
Someone needed support? I stepped in.
Something wasn’t working? I figured out how to make it work.
A fire started? I was probably already running toward it.
And to be fair, that kind of leadership can be necessary when you are building something. When you are an entrepreneur, educator, consultant, or organizational leader, there are seasons when you are the system.
You create the process, answer the questions, solve the problems, and fill in all the gaps.
It can create a beautifully, exhausting cycle of dependency.
One of the greatest shifts in my leadership has been learning how to move from responder to resource.
That means I don’t automatically jump when a need appears.
Instead, I listen for:
What is actually needed?
Who is equipped to address it?
Is there already a process for this?
Does someone need me to solve the problem—or do they need information, guidance, a connection, or permission to solve it themselves?
And finally:
Do I have the capacity?
Capability and Capacity Are Not the Same Thing
When you have spent years developing expertise, you become capable of doing a lot of things.
Capability answers the question:
Can I do this?
Capacity asks a different question:
Should I do this?
Can I give this what it deserves without taking something necessary away from the work I am already responsible for?
Leadership Is Infrastructure
One measure of leadership is what continues to work when you are not the person doing the work.
As my work has expanded, I’ve become increasingly interested in the infrastructure behind the work.
Who else knows how to do this? What happens when I am unavailable?
Can I create a process that can be repeated?
In our cultural traditions, knowledge was never meant to live in one person, and the work of the village was never meant to rest on one back. What we know must be shared, practiced, documented, and passed forward so that others are prepared to carry it.
The goal, then, becomes bigger than simply getting the work done.
It become a way to pour knowledge into people, create systems that preserve what we have learned, and prepare others to carry the work forward.
Sustainable leadership is not measured by how much I can hold by myself. It is reflected in how many hands have been prepared to hold the calabash with me—and eventually, without me.
I used to measure my capacity by how much I could carry. Now I’m beginning to measure leadership by how intentionally I prepare other hands.
Our ancestors understood that wisdom was communal. Knowledge survived because it was passed from hand to hand, generation to generation.
Because the calabash was never meant to be held by one person forever.
There comes a time when we have to teach what we know, document what we have learned, trust the gifts of others, and make room for the next hands to reach for it.
That is how the work outlives us, becomes a legacy, how individual capability becomes collective capacity.
I don’t simply want to leave behind evidence that I did the work.
I want to leave behind people who can say:
She empowered us to continue the journey.
So, to the leaders, educators, and builders in my network: Who are you intentionally pouring into—and what are you preparing them to carry forward?
Designing learning. Increasing capacity. Creating impact.
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