Why do we keep promoting the wrong people into leadership

In this follow-on episode of Catch The Upswing, we continue the conversation with Marijn Wiersma — this time shaped by questions from our global community.

After our first episode, which focused on her book SOS: A Navigation Guide for Women at Work, we invited listeners from around the world to share the questions they’re grappling with in their own workplaces.

From London to Nairobi to Dubai and beyond, this episode brings those voices into the conversation — exploring the realities of leadership, culture, and systems from the ground up.

Together, we go beyond the book to unpack what leaders and teams are navigating in practice today.

In this episode, we explore:

• the most overlooked toxic leadership behavior — and why it persists
• how we confuse confidence with competence
• how insecurity in leadership turns toxic — and why it gets rewarded
• what it really takes to create more inclusive workplaces
• how emotions are judged differently in leadership
• how to navigate resilience, burnout, and long-term change

This is a conversation shaped by real questions — and grounded in the lived experiences behind them.

🔗 Check out Marijn’s work:

SOS: A Navigation Guide for Women at Work https://soswomenatwork.org/ (also available on Amazon and bookstores worldwide)

Marijn Wiersma on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marijnwiersma/

🔖 Chapters

00:00 Trailer

01:43 Welcome back — audience questions from around the world

02:16 The most overlooked toxic leadership trait

04:19 Why we confuse confidence with competence

06:45 The hard truth about keeping top female talent

09:32 Emotion, credibility, and the double standard at work

12:48 Why empathy is non-negotiable in leadership

15:42 Authenticity at work — and the courage to keep the coat on

20:02 Resilience, burnout, and why pushing through isn’t the answer

27:14 Systems change, hope, and the case for outrage + optimism

29:54 How to build real allies at work

32:14 The one thing leaders should do tomorrow morning

33:42 How to make unconscious bias conscious

34:35 What Marijn hopes her book will change

📺 Watch more episodes:

Catch The Upswing is a business podcast exploring how people build, lead, and navigate complexity in a rapidly changing world.

Subscribe for conversations with global leaders, entrepreneurs, and emerging voices shaping today’s economy.

Mentioned in this episode

Christiana Figueres — former UN climate chief and architect of the Paris Agreement.

Watch the full episode with Christiana Figueres on Catch The Upswing: https://youtu.be/GrFJvCvEUp4?si=RV5DwoCmLITTeoIl

🔗 Follow & connect:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@CatchTheUpswing
Instagram: https://instagram.com/CatchTheUpswing
TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@catchtheupswing

🎥 B-roll credits:

Some of the visual material used in the trailer of this episode is courtesy of 2X Global. Original footage supplied by C+A Media, commissioned by the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

#Leadership #WomenInBusiness #CareerGrowth #Mindset #GenderEquality #FutureOfWork #CatchTheUpswing