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Are you a business owner, executive, leader, team leader, aspiring future leader, leadership junkie, a scientist, a design thinker, or simply the leader of your own life? If you are, then you are a leader, and as such, you should be experimenting!

Welcome to The Experimental Leader, a podcast where we tackle the ways leaders are experimenting in their own work. Hosted by Melanie Parish and Dr. Mel Rutherford, we dive into the most interesting questions about leaders and get into real-life conversations about how people might be experimenting with their leadership. What they are trying? How they are leading and managing their flow of work and throughput? How are they managing bottlenecks, mission, vision, strategic, operational, and tactical intents? How do they organize experiments? How do they succeed? How do they fail? How do they collect data?

The loneliness of leadership can be overwhelming, especially when a leader gets promoted and doesn’t have a roadmap for how to lead. They might feel like they are supposed to have the answers, and yet they have to figure out what that really means. The hardest part can be not having anyone to talk to about their leadership journey.

  The show’s guests in this episode is Dr. Liane Davey. She is a bestselling author and executive advisor who has spent three decades helping people achieve amazing things together. Her work focuses on tackling the messiest people issues holding teams back, including fostering accountability, promoting healthy conflict, and managing overwhelm. Liane’s latest book, Thoughtload: Manage the Madness and Free Your Team to Do Great Work, addresses the mental and emotional overload crushing today’s teams. —   Listen to the podcast here  Digital Detox & Thoughtload with Liane Davey Hello and welcome to the Experimental Leader podcast. I’m MelanieRead More
  Are you hiring the best person for the role—or simply the person who feels most familiar? In this episode of The Experimental Leader Podcast, Melanie Parish and Mel Rutherford explore how hiring bias can limit team performance and why diverse personalities create stronger organizations. Learn how tools like DISC can support better hiring decisions, when it’s worth extending your search for the right candidate, and how curiosity can help you build a more effective team. —   Listen to the podcast here  Skill Up: Hiring Beyond Your Bias Welcome to a special Skill Up edition of the ExperimentalRead More
    — When everything is labelled as urgent, productivity suffers. In this episode of The Experimental Leader, Melanie Parish and Mel Rutherford explore how poor prioritization creates unnecessary stress, confusion, and rework. Discover practical strategies for balancing vision with execution, empowering your team, improving communication, and leading with greater clarity instead of constant urgency.   Listen to the podcast here  Traps and Tricks: Vision vs. Volume Welcome to a new episode of Traps and Tricks. I’m Mel Rutherford. I’m an academic psychologist. I’m the author of The Glass Cliff: One Trans Man’s Leadership Odyssey, and I’m the co-hostRead More
  The show’s guest in this episode is Georgia Thomas. She’s a former corporate lawyer, and she turned into a multi-business founder and CEO. And she has multiple business with her husband Gavin Thomas. And what she does is she helps founders build sustainable businesses that scale without depending entirely on them. So they’re able to stop being overwhelmed operators, which I mean maybe that’s the saying no part, and turning into visionary CEOs that are focused on growth, freedom, and intentional leadership. —   Listen to the podcast here  The Hidden Cost of Unclear Expectations with Georgia ThomasRead More
    — In this Traps and Tricks episode of the Experimental Leader Podcast, Mel Rutherford and Melanie Parish unpack two big leadership traps: treating criticism as something you just have to “weather,” and shutting down in the face of strong emotions. They explore how to see criticism as data, respond to emotions with empathy (not avoidance), and create healthier information flow between leaders, middle managers, and teams.   Listen to the podcast here  Traps and Tricks: From Breakdown to Breakthrough Hello, I’m Melanie Parish, and I am a content creator. I’m an author, I’m an executive coach, and I’m a teacher. Hi,Read More
    — In this Traps and Tricks episode of The Experimental Leader, Mel Rutherford and Melanie Parish explore how leaders fall into the traps of “just weathering criticism” and avoiding strong emotions, and share practical ways to treat criticism as data, listen with empathy, and create healthier, more honest teams.   Listen to the podcast here  Traps and Tricks: Criticism & Emotions Welcome to the Experimental Leader Podcast. I’m Mel Rutherford, McMaster University’s first transgender department chair, and the co-host of the Experimental Leader Podcast. Hi, I’m Melanie Parish. I’m a master certified coach, an author, and the co-host of the ExperimentalRead More
  —   Listen to the podcast here  Skill Up: Developing People Hi, I’m Melanie Parish. I’m an author, a master certified coach, and a podcast host, and I’m excited to be with you today. Hi, I’m Mel Rutherford. I’m McMaster University’s first transgender department chair, and I’m the co-host of the Experimental Leader Podcast. Well, this episode is going to be our leadership skill up episode, and I just.. we were, we were talking, and we realized there’s opportunities for leaders to upscale their leadership, like what can they do to improve fairly rapidly in one area, andRead More
  The show’s guest in this episode is Dr. Rosalind “Roz” Cohen. She is an Inclusion Strategist, thought partner, and founder of Socius Strategies, where she helps organizations build cultures rooted in connection, belonging, and trust. With over 20 years of experience in HR, she blends research-backed insights with practical strategies to align culture and operations. Her work, informed by her Ph.D. in Leadership and Change from Antioch University, focuses on the impact of inclusive leadership on engagement and organizational success. A sought-after speaker and advisor, Roz is passionate about fostering radically connected cultures through courage, authenticity, and meaningful relationships.Read More
  The show’s guests in this episode are Dr. Tracy, Christopher Christofferson and Michelle Troseth. They are co-founders of Missing Logic, and the core of their work is to help mid-career and executive leaders unlock the next level without overworking and neglecting their personal lives. —   Listen to the podcast here  Leading Without Burnout with Michelle Troseth & Dr. Tracy Christopherson I’m Melanie Parish. Welcome to the experimental leader podcast. I am an author, an executive coach, a part-time facilitator and a content creator. I am Mel Rutherford. I’m McMaster University’s first transgender department chair, and I’m theRead More
  The show’s guest in this episode is Dr. L. Carol Scott. She is a TEDx and keynote speaker, #1 international bestselling author, and coach who helps leaders succeed by strengthening social and emotional intelligence. With a PhD in Developmental Psychology, she brings trauma-sensitive insight and practical tools to show how early relational patterns shape leadership, work, and life. Her work bridges research, neuroscience, and real-world experience to develop the leader while honoring the person. —   Listen to the podcast here  Trauma-Informed Leadership with Dr. L. Carol Scott Hello, welcome to the show. I’m Melanie Parish. I’m anRead More

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