UNSHAKEABLE HER: Real-World Leadership, Influence and Promotion for Ambitious Women.

Caroline Esterson: Leadership, Influence and Promotion Coach.
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You're already leading. So why aren't you the one getting promoted? UNSHAKEABLE HER is the podcast for ambitious women in leadership who want promotion, not just praise, through building influence, strategy and confidence.  Every week we get into the real science of leadership confidence, the unwritten rules of influence, and how to build the kind of presence that makes promotion inevitable. Hosted by Caroline Esterson, a career strategist with 30 years inside hundreds of organisations, who knows exactly why brilliant women get overlooked and what to do about it. This podcast offers practical, repeatable ways to build influence, confidence, and career momentum. Each week you'll learn: ·  How to build the visibility and strategic positioning that gets you noticed for the     roles you want. ·  How to lead with more influence without losing yourself in the process. ·  The real science behind imposter syndrome in leadership, and what actually shifts it for good. With new episodes every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, Unshakeable Her delivers stories, strategy, and insight to help you become someone nobody can shake. Start with fan-favourite #86 to understand the real cost of invisible work and learn why doing more isn't always the path to greater career progression and workplace recognition. https://inspireyourgenius.com/podcast

  1. 1h ago

    #139 | The 15-Minute Leadership Strategy That Builds Influence When Life Is Too Chaotic for a Clear Run.

    What if the thing holding back your career isn’t your ability, effort, or ambition—but the fact that nobody can see the progress you’re already making? When your week is overflowing and you’re running on fumes, it’s easy to believe meaningful career progress has to wait until you have more time, more energy, or the perfect uninterrupted stretch. This episode challenges that assumption with a 15-Minute Leadership Strategy That Amplifies Your Influence by helping you create small, visible evidence that things move when they’re in your hands. You’ll discover: How to create an “ugly version” in five minutes so an important project stops living entirely in your head and starts becoming something you can improve.How to use an if-then cue to make progress inside an already-full week instead of waiting for the mythical moment when you finally “have time.”How to create a visible trace of your work so managers, sponsors, and stakeholders can see momentum instead of filling silence with their own assumptions.Listen to discover how a 15-Minute Leadership Strategy That Amplifies Your Influence can help you turn fragmented pockets of time into visible progress, stronger leadership presence, and career momentum—without waiting for the perfect conditions. 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. And here is the Spotify Playlist to accompany UnShakeable Her. Unshakeable Her is the podcast for women in leadership who are ready to build real influence, earn the promotion they deserve, and lead with confidence in systems that weren't built for them. Each episode tackles the challenges that shape leadership from the inside out, including imposter syndrome, resilience, credibility, boundaries, conflict, and feedback, while unpacking how pressure, workplace politics, strategic thinking, decision-making, and visibility affect the way ambitious women grow, lead, and get promoted without losing themselves in the process.

  2. 2d ago

    #138 | The “Clean Run” Myth That Stalls Leadership Progress and Promotion.

    What if the reason you're struggling to make progress isn't a lack of discipline—but the fact that you're waiting for a stretch of uninterrupted time that simply isn't coming? In this episode, we dig into the science behind why small, triggered actions can move you further than the big uninterrupted work session you're waiting for. From nearly 12,000 daily diary entries to research on scarcity, habits, small wins, and “if-then” planning, you'll discover why progress doesn't have to look impressive to be powerful. You'll also explore what this means when you're leading other people—and how the way you structure work can either support capable people or quietly leave them waiting for a “clean run.” Understand why small progress has such a powerful effect on motivation — discover why tiny wins can have a disproportionately positive impact, while periods of stalled progress can erode your confidence.Stop treating messy circumstances as a character flaw — learn why habits can collapse when your circumstances change and how changing your cues and reducing the size of the task can help you keep moving.Learn how to make progress more resilient to real life — use smaller actions and “if-then” plans to create momentum, and discover how to apply the same thinking when you're leading a team.If you're ready to stop waiting for the perfect conditions and learn how to keep making meaningful progress when life gets messy, listen to the full episode. 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. And here is the Spotify Playlist to accompany UnShakeable Her. Unshakeable Her is the podcast for women in leadership who are ready to build real influence, earn the promotion they deserve, and lead with confidence in systems that weren't built for them. Each episode tackles the challenges that shape leadership from the inside out, including imposter syndrome, resilience, credibility, boundaries, conflict, and feedback, while unpacking how pressure, workplace politics, strategic thinking, decision-making, and visibility affect the way ambitious women grow, lead, and get promoted without losing themselves in the process.

  3. 4d ago

    #137 | Waiting for the “Right Time” Could Cost You the Leadership Opportunity You Worked For.

    What if the leadership opportunity you’ve worked toward finally arrives—but your life is already completely full? When you're ambitious, it's easy to believe you need a clear diary, uninterrupted time, and the right conditions before you can step into a bigger opportunity. But life rarely creates that kind of space. In this episode, you'll follow Cara as a major leadership opportunity arrives just as family, work, and everyday life become impossibly messy. You'll discover why waiting for the “clear run” can quietly cost you opportunities—and how to start moving forward even when you only have fragments of time. Recognize the pattern that can stall your leadership growth — spot what happens when an opportunity arrives, life gets busy, and waiting starts to look like ambivalence to everyone else.Rewrite the three unspoken rules holding capable women back — challenge the belief that you need to hide your personal life, have uninterrupted time, or start perfectly before your work counts.Learn how to turn tiny fragments of time into meaningful progress — use a simple first step to create momentum instead of waiting for the 90 minutes you may never get.If you're ready to stop waiting for life to become less messy and start moving on the leadership opportunities you've worked for, listen to the full episode. 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. And here is the Spotify Playlist to accompany UnShakeable Her. Unshakeable Her is the podcast for women in leadership who are ready to build real influence, earn the promotion they deserve, and lead with confidence in systems that weren't built for them. Each episode tackles the challenges that shape leadership from the inside out, including imposter syndrome, resilience, credibility, boundaries, conflict, and feedback, while unpacking how pressure, workplace politics, strategic thinking, decision-making, and visibility affect the way ambitious women grow, lead, and get promoted without losing themselves in the process.

  4. Oct 2

    #136 | 3 Leadership Moves That Protect Your Time & Mean You're Never "Too Busy" to Think Strategically Again.

    What if the biggest thing stopping you from doing your best work isn’t a lack of time — but what you’re allowing into your best thinking hours? When your calendar is packed with meetings, messages and operational demands, strategic thinking gets pushed into whatever scraps of time remain. But becoming a more effective leader doesn’t mean squeezing even more into your day. It means protecting the conditions that allow your strategic thinking, deep work and flow to happen in the first place. In this episode, you’ll discover how to identify the hours when your brain works at its best and start treating that time as the valuable professional resource it actually is. You’ll learn: How to identify your peak thinking window so you can match your most important work to the hours when your energy, focus and motivation are strongest.How to protect time for strategic thinking and deep work without disappearing from your team, restructuring your entire week or waiting for your organization to change.How to challenge unnecessary meetings and calendar demands so you can recover more time, find your flow and produce better work without simply working longer.Listen to discover three practical moves you can use this week to reclaim your calendar, protect your best thinking and create more space for the work that actually makes a difference. Discover Your Power Window: Download your free worksheet here! Find out when your brain is at its best with Caroline's free Peak & Flow worksheet. Identify your peak focus hours, recognise your energy patterns, and learn to schedule your most important work when you're at your best. 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. And here is the Spotify Playlist to accompany UnShakeable Her. Unshakeable Her is the podcast for women in leadership who are ready to build real influence, earn the promotion they deserve, and lead with confidence in systems that weren't built for them. Each episode tackles the challenges that shape leadership from the inside out, including imposter syndrome, resilience, credibility, boundaries, conflict, and feedback, while unpacking how pressure, workplace politics, strategic thinking, decision-making, and visibility affect the way ambitious women grow, lead, and get promoted without losing themselves in the process.

  5. Sep 30

    #135 | Busyness Is Stealing Your Best Thinking Time & It’s Hurting Your Leadership, Influence and Promotion Prospects

    When was the last time you had two uninterrupted hours to work on something important—and came out the other side feeling energized rather than exhausted? That feeling is flow, and your workplace may be making it almost impossible to experience. Between back-to-back meetings, notifications, interruptions, and calendars that fill themselves, your best cognitive hours can disappear before you've had the chance to use them. The result isn't necessarily more productivity—it's fragmented attention, slower work, and less opportunity to produce the work that creates real value. In this episode, you'll explore what happens when you understand your natural performance cycles and deliberately protect the conditions your brain needs for deep, focused work. You'll learn how to: Identify your peak performance windows so you can stop wasting your best cognitive hours on work that doesn't require them.Create the conditions for flow by understanding why uninterrupted concentration, clear goals, feedback, and the right level of challenge matter.Protect more time for deep work and rethink meetings, interruptions, and calendar habits that quietly consume your team's collective cognitive capacity.Ready to find your flow? Listen to the episode to discover how to protect your best thinking time, find your flow, and create more value without simply working more hours. Want to discover when you do your best thinking and have the most energy for high-value work? Use this workbook to identify your peak working periods and start protecting them in your diary. 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. And here is the Spotify Playlist to accompany UnShakeable Her. Unshakeable Her is the podcast for women in leadership who are ready to build real influence, earn the promotion they deserve, and lead with confidence in systems that weren't built for them. Each episode tackles the challenges that shape leadership from the inside out, including imposter syndrome, resilience, credibility, boundaries, conflict, and feedback, while unpacking how pressure, workplace politics, strategic thinking, decision-making, and visibility affect the way ambitious women grow, lead, and get promoted without losing themselves in the process.

  6. Sep 28

    #134 | Stop Wasting Your Best Focus Hours on Meetings, Instead Use Them to Build Leadership, Influence and Value.

    What if your busiest days are actually keeping you from doing the work that gets you noticed? If your calendar is packed with meetings, calls, emails, and constant interruptions, it can feel like you're being productive simply because you're busy. But there's a difference between activity and output—and confusing the two can leave your highest-value work sitting on your to-do list for weeks. In this episode, you'll follow Cara as she discovers what happens when she stops waiting for an empty calendar and deliberately protects time for the work that actually moves the dial. You’ll learn how to: Identify the high-value work you're continually putting off so you can focus your time and energy on work that creates meaningful impact.Separate busyness from effectiveness and stop using a full calendar as evidence that you're being productive.Create protected 90-minute focus blocks that give your brain enough uninterrupted space to think, produce better work, and make your value more visible.Ready to stop letting your calendar dictate your priorities? Listen to the episode and find one piece of high-value work to give your next 90-minute focus block. 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. And here is the Spotify Playlist to accompany UnShakeable Her. Unshakeable Her is the podcast for women in leadership who are ready to build real influence, earn the promotion they deserve, and lead with confidence in systems that weren't built for them. Each episode tackles the challenges that shape leadership from the inside out, including imposter syndrome, resilience, credibility, boundaries, conflict, and feedback, while unpacking how pressure, workplace politics, strategic thinking, decision-making, and visibility affect the way ambitious women grow, lead, and get promoted without losing themselves in the process.

  7. Sep 25

    #133 | The 3 Step Reset You NEED To Ditch Perfectionism, Build Your Leadership Influence & Protect Your Promotion Potential

    What if the thing keeping you from submitting your work isn't that it needs to be better—but that you're afraid of what happens when it's finally seen? If you find yourself endlessly editing, rereading, or delaying work that is already good enough, Perfectionism may be doing more than raising your standards. It may be helping Imposter Syndrome keep you in a cycle where nothing ever feels finished—especially as you step into Bigger Roles. In this episode, you'll learn practical ways to interrupt that cycle and create a healthier definition of “done.” You'll discover why the closer you get to completion, the harder it can become to release your work, and how to stop giving your inner perfectionist control over when you move forward. You’ll learn: How to interrupt the perfectionism spiral before you submit using a specific submission time, trusted feedback, and a no-rereading rule. How to create your own definition of “done” so you can release work based on its purpose rather than an imaginary standard. How to retrain your brain to notice what is already working through the Done Line, One-Read Rule, and Good List. The goal isn't lower standards. It's carrying a lighter shield—and learning that you can release good work without waiting for certainty. Listen to the episode and learn how to let your work be done without letting Perfectionism and Imposter Syndrome decide when you're ready to move on. 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. And here is the Spotify Playlist to accompany UnShakeable Her. Unshakeable Her is the podcast for women in leadership who are ready to build real influence, earn the promotion they deserve, and lead with confidence in systems that weren't built for them. Each episode tackles the challenges that shape leadership from the inside out, including imposter syndrome, resilience, credibility, boundaries, conflict, and feedback, while unpacking how pressure, workplace politics, strategic thinking, decision-making, and visibility affect the way ambitious women grow, lead, and get promoted without losing themselves in the process.

  8. Sep 23

    #132 | Why Perfectionism Explodes When You Step Into Bigger Leadership Roles & The Imposter Syndrome Trap That Keeps Brilliant Women Playing Small.

    Whose standard are you actually trying to meet—and what is your Perfectionism costing you as you step into Bigger Roles? Perfectionism can look like ambition, conscientiousness, and high standards from the outside. But for many women, it can be driven by something much more exhausting: the belief that other people are constantly evaluating whether you’re good enough. In this episode, we unpack the research behind three types of perfectionism and explore why socially prescribed perfectionism is particularly important when you’re navigating career growth, visibility, and Bigger Roles. We also examine the connection between Perfectionism, burnout, and the internal pressure that can fuel Imposter Syndrome. You’ll learn: How to identify the type of Perfectionism you’re experiencing and recognize when high standards have shifted into an exhausting need for external approval. Why women can be particularly vulnerable to socially prescribed Perfectionism and how external expectations can become an internal critical voice. How to recognize when Perfectionism is becoming a burnout risk and start separating genuinely high standards from the impossible standards created by Imposter Syndrome. Listen to the episode to understand what’s really driving your Perfectionism—and change the relationship you have with uncertainty, approval, and stepping into Bigger Roles. 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. And here is the Spotify Playlist to accompany UnShakeable Her. Unshakeable Her is the podcast for women in leadership who are ready to build real influence, earn the promotion they deserve, and lead with confidence in systems that weren't built for them. Each episode tackles the challenges that shape leadership from the inside out, including imposter syndrome, resilience, credibility, boundaries, conflict, and feedback, while unpacking how pressure, workplace politics, strategic thinking, decision-making, and visibility affect the way ambitious women grow, lead, and get promoted without losing themselves in the process.

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You're already leading. So why aren't you the one getting promoted? UNSHAKEABLE HER is the podcast for ambitious women in leadership who want promotion, not just praise, through building influence, strategy and confidence.  Every week we get into the real science of leadership confidence, the unwritten rules of influence, and how to build the kind of presence that makes promotion inevitable. Hosted by Caroline Esterson, a career strategist with 30 years inside hundreds of organisations, who knows exactly why brilliant women get overlooked and what to do about it. This podcast offers practical, repeatable ways to build influence, confidence, and career momentum. Each week you'll learn: ·  How to build the visibility and strategic positioning that gets you noticed for the     roles you want. ·  How to lead with more influence without losing yourself in the process. ·  The real science behind imposter syndrome in leadership, and what actually shifts it for good. With new episodes every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, Unshakeable Her delivers stories, strategy, and insight to help you become someone nobody can shake. Start with fan-favourite #86 to understand the real cost of invisible work and learn why doing more isn't always the path to greater career progression and workplace recognition. https://inspireyourgenius.com/podcast

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