Little Moves, Big Careers: Smart Career Growth Strategies for Ambitious Professionals.
Struggling to get noticed and move up in today’s fast-changing workplace? Little Moves, Big Careers is your go-to podcast for smart, actionable career growth strategies that cut through the noise.
From visibility and confidence to self-leadership and influence, every episode mixes bold insights, cheeky truths, and practical takeaways that actually work inside real organisations to help you stand out and get promoted.
No corporate waffle; just unapologetically honest career talk for people who want to perform, progress, and stand out for all the right reasons.
New episodes drop every Tuesday.
Start your journey with 'The Survivor’s Guide' episode to learn how to lead through change and rebuild your career even when things get sticky.
Hosted by Caroline Esterson, career strategist and co-founder of www.inspireyourgenius.com, this show reveals the unspoken rules of modern work and teaches you the small, smart moves that make a big difference.
Sign up for your Genius Files weekly - your backstage pass to the unspoken rules of high-performance careers. Smart shifts that make you say, “Oh damn, that’s exactly what I needed.”
https://inspire-your-genius.kit.com/a162791a94
Little Moves, Big Careers: Smart Career Growth Strategies for Ambitious Professionals.
#44 | Why Ego Undermines Influence, Fuels Imposter Syndrome and Delays Promotion for Great Leaders
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What if leadership isn’t about having the answers at all?
In this episode, I’m joined by leadership coach and former senior police leader Zoe Thompson, whose 20-year career in policing offers some of the most honest, grounded lessons I’ve heard about trust, ego, and what leadership really looks like when the pressure is on.
We talk about leading people who know more than you, being comfortable saying “I don’t know”, and why ego (not a lack of capability) is often the thing that quietly undermines teams and performance.
We also reframe imposter syndrome, explore why decision-making feels so hard in modern organisations, and unpack what great leaders actually do when things are messy, uncertain, or emotionally charged.
This is a reflective, practical conversation for anyone who leads others, or is figuring out how they want to lead.
What We Cover
- Why leadership isn’t about expertise (and what it is about instead)
- How ego shows up as control, certainty, and defensiveness at work
- The difference between psychological safety and “open door” policies
- A powerful reframe of imposter syndrome as self-awareness, not weakness
- How good leaders make decisions without waiting for perfect information
- What it really means to clear the way for your team
- Trust as a two-way relationship (and how quickly it can be lost)
- Navigating redundancy, identity shifts, and values-led career moves
Key Takeaway
Great leadership doesn’t come from knowing more. Instead, it comes from listening better, letting go of ego, and creating the conditions for other people to do their best work.
Often, the smallest shift - one better question, one moment of restraint, one honest conversation - is where the real change begins.
Links & Resources
- 🔗 Zoe Thompson – leadership coaching and development (link in show notes)
- 🔗 Free Values Assessment (there are tons of great resources on this site too)
- 🔗 Connect with Caroline here
If this episode stirred something, don’t rush to fix it.
Sit with it. Those quiet moments are often where the biggest career shifts begin.
New episodes are released every Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings.
Stuck, simmering, or onto something juicy? I want to hear it. Drop me a line at caroline@inspireyourgenius.com - I read them all.
This podcast explores resilience, imposter syndrome, and credibility while unpacking how boundaries, conflict, and feedback shape the way we handle pressure, influence, and guilt at work. It also looks at promotion, work-life balance, people pleasing, decision making, and visibility, offering honest conversations about how to grow professionally without losing your confidence or yourself.
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