Are Lateral Career Moves Good for Your Career?
Control Your Career: Career Growth and Strategy for Ambitious Professionals
Release Date: 06/09/2026
Are Lateral Career Moves Good for Your Career?
Control Your Career: Career Growth and Strategy for Ambitious Professionals
Career growth is not always vertical. For a long time, professionals were told to climb the corporate ladder, stay loyal, take the promotion, and keep moving up. But that advice does not always reflect how careers actually evolve today. In this episode of Control Your Career, Julia Toothacre explores the value and complexity of lateral career moves. She explains why some professionals resist them, why a move without a higher title can feel risky, and how lateral opportunities can quietly build long-term career leverage. A lateral move may not look impressive right away. It may not come with a...
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What Is Career Sponsorship? Why Advocacy, Not Just Hard Work, Gets You Promoted
Control Your Career: Career Growth and Strategy for Ambitious Professionals
A lot of professionals still believe career growth mostly comes from working hard, doing good work, and eventually being recognized for it. But inside organizations, opportunities often begin forming before jobs are officially posted. Conversations happen early. Leaders compare notes. Someone’s name comes up because trust already exists. That is where sponsorship starts to matter. In this episode of Control Your Career, Julia Toothacre breaks down the difference between mentorship and sponsorship and explains why sponsorship is one of the strongest forms of career leverage inside...
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The difference between authority and influence at work
Control Your Career: Career Growth and Strategy for Ambitious Professionals
If you’ve ever wondered why some people get pulled into decisions at work while others are told after the fact, this episode is for you. In this episode of Control Your Career, I break down how influence actually works at work and why it has very little to do with your title, even though that’s what most people focus on. You can be experienced, capable, and respected in your role and still find yourself left out of key conversations, and that gap usually has nothing to do with effort and everything to do with influence. We’ll talk through what it looks like to move from executing...
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The Truth About Workplace Reputation and Career Advancement
Control Your Career: Career Growth and Strategy for Ambitious Professionals
Workplace reputation plays a direct role in career advancement, promotions, and the opportunities you’re considered for long before any formal conversation happens. In this episode, career coach and strategic career consultant Julia Toothacre breaks down how reputation at work actually forms and why it often matters more than your performance. If you’re doing strong work but not getting promoted or pulled into bigger opportunities, your reputation may not reflect the level you’re operating at. In this episode, you’ll learn: How workplace reputation is built through repeated behavior ...
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5 Skills That Build Trust With Leaders
Control Your Career: Career Growth and Strategy for Ambitious Professionals
Building trust with leaders at work is what drives career growth, influence, and access to more responsibility. In this episode of Control Your Career, career strategist Julia Toothacre breaks down the five skills that build trust with leaders and shape how you’re perceived at work. You can be reliable, do good work, and still not be the person leaders turn to when it matters. That’s because trust isn’t built through execution alone, but through how you think, how you communicate, and how you make decisions. In this episode, you’ll learn: How judgment influences trust and...
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How to Manage Yourself During Organizational Change
Control Your Career: Career Growth and Strategy for Ambitious Professionals
If you are navigating a leadership change, reorganization, strategy shift, or internal restructure, you are probably wondering how to manage yourself during organizational change without damaging your reputation. This episode breaks down how to stand out at work during uncertainty, how to build influence inside your company, and how to grow your career without waiting for a promotion. Organizational change creates instability when your reporting lines shift, priorities change, and projects lose owners. In those moments, most professionals focus on frustration or job security. Fewer people...
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How to Position Yourself for Promotion
Control Your Career: Career Growth and Strategy for Ambitious Professionals
If you want to get promoted, create more career options, and stop feeling stuck at work, you need more than strong performance. In this episode of Control Your Career, Julia Toothacre breaks down how to position yourself for promotion by building real career leverage. Promotion decisions are rarely based on effort alone. Leaders evaluate trust, visibility, judgment, and risk. This episode explains how to build the five forms of career leverage that determine whether you are seen as promotable or simply dependable in your current role. You’ll learn how to strengthen: Skill range that...
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Hard Work Isn’t Enough to Grow Your Career
Control Your Career: Career Growth and Strategy for Ambitious Professionals
Why do high performers get stuck in their careers? If you feel like you are working hard but not getting promoted, you may be experiencing a mid-career plateau. In this first episode of Season 13, Julia Toothacre explores why performance alone stops driving career growth and what actually moves professionals forward. Hard work gets you established, but it is not what grows your career long term. Julia Toothacre introduces a more accurate model for how careers evolve once you are established. Early career rewards effort and execution, but at a certain point, advancement needs positioning,...
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Writing A Career Book: Updates, Breakthroughs & Lessons Learned
Control Your Career: Career Growth and Strategy for Ambitious Professionals
I'm pulling back the curtain on my book-writing journey! In this bonus episode, I'm sharing an honest update on my upcoming book based on the Control Your Career process: what I've written so far, what I've learned, and why writing a book is WAY harder than I expected. Part 1 is for anyone curious about the book itself: what it's about, who it's for, and why I think it's different from every other career book out there. (Spoiler: it actually meets you where you are, not where some career expert thinks you should be.) Part 2 is for my fellow writers, authors, and coaches: I'm getting...
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Financial Control Beyond Your Paycheck and 401(k)
Control Your Career: Career Growth and Strategy for Ambitious Professionals
This bonus episode of Control Your Career is a little different, and very intentional. Julia Toothacre is joined by financial professional and podcast host Natalie Kime for a real, grounded conversation about money, career decisions, and life transitions. This is not a tactical breakdown of investments or retirement accounts. It is a conversation about how money actually shows up in real life. Natalie brings a deeply human perspective to financial planning, shaped not only by her professional experience, but also by her role as a caregiver to her mom. Together, Julia and Natalie talk about...
info_outlineCareer growth is not always vertical.
For a long time, professionals were told to climb the corporate ladder, stay loyal, take the promotion, and keep moving up. But that advice does not always reflect how careers actually evolve today.
In this episode of Control Your Career, Julia Toothacre explores the value and complexity of lateral career moves. She explains why some professionals resist them, why a move without a higher title can feel risky, and how lateral opportunities can quietly build long-term career leverage.
A lateral move may not look impressive right away. It may not come with a promotion announcement or a bigger title. But it can expand your business understanding, strengthen your relationships, build transferable skills, and make you a more adaptable professional over time.
Julia also explains when lateral moves can create confusion, especially if your career story becomes hard to explain. Nonlinear career paths can create leverage, but only when you can connect the dots clearly.
This episode covers:
• Why professionals resist lateral moves
• How the corporate ladder mindset still shapes career decisions
• When a lateral move can strengthen your long-term positioning
• Why cross-functional exposure matters for leadership growth
• How transferable skills support career mobility
• When nonlinear moves create confusion
• How to evaluate a lateral opportunity strategically
• Why career decisions based on optics can limit future leverage
If you are considering a lateral move, a career change, or a role that does not look like an obvious step up, this episode will help you think about the bigger picture.
Sometimes the move that looks sideways now creates more options later.
Read The Blog: https://ridethetidecollective.com/2026/06/09/are-lateral-career-moves-good-for-your-career/
Explore all episodes: https://ridethetidecollective.com/podcast/
Connect with Julia on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliakrussell/
Visit the website: https://ridethetidecollective.com
Get career resources: https://ridethetidecollective.com/free/
Remember, you control your career.