Start 2026 with a fresh take on leadership. In this episode of The Experimental Leader, Mel Rutherford and Melanie Parish are joined by designer and community builder Paulo Gregory to explore leading through collective wisdom. They discuss the power of soft skills, non-hierarchical leadership, and collaboration, and how experimentation and trust can unlock innovation and shared ownership in teams. A must-listen for leaders ready to rethink how leadership works.

Start 2026 with a fresh take on leadership. In this episode of The Experimental Leader, Mel Rutherford and Melanie Parish are joined by designer and community builder Paulo Gregory to explore leading through collective wisdom. They discuss the power of soft skills, non-hierarchical leadership, and collaboration, and how experimentation and trust can unlock innovation and shared ownership in teams. A must-listen for leaders ready to rethink how leadership works.

Leading Through Collective Wisdom with Paulo Gregory

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. Fear not. Let Melanie Parish and Mel Rutherford be your guide to becoming the leader you were meant to be – an experimental leader! A public speaker, consultant, workshop leader, author, and Master Certified Coach through the International Coach Federation, from whom she received the Prism Award, Melanie is an expert in problem-solving, constraints management, operations, strategic hiring, and brand development. She has consulted and coached organizations ranging from a Fortune 50 company to IT start-ups receiving their first round of funding. Her individual clients include those in FAANG and other top global IT companies. Melanie is a Certified Professional Coactive Coach and, Organization and Relationship Systems Certified Coach, and a Theory of Constraints Certified Jonah. As an author, educator, and creator of The Experimental Leader program, Melanie shows people new ways of thinking about their leadership, informed by her understanding of the fast-paced ride of technology innovation. A professor in the Department of Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour, and Canada Research Chair in Social Perception. Dr. Mel Rutherford graduated from Yale University and earned a Ph.D. in Psychology with an emphasis in Human Development from the University of California at Santa Barbara. A Fulbright Fellowship allowed Dr. Rutherford to study and collaborate with the well-known Simon Baron-Cohen in Cambridge, England. Dr. Rutherford also worked with Bruce Pennington and Sally Rogers at the University of Denver as a postdoctoral fellow. He now heads a dynamic research laboratory at McMaster University. Dr. Rutherford is well-known for research in the field of psychology and has been interviewed and quoted in The Globe and Mail, The London Times, The Chicago Times, CBC Radio, Quirks and Quarks, and The Discovery Channel, as well as many AP newspapers around the world. Get rid of the fear and doubt, and shift your leadership into something that works better. Every week, learn from top leaders about how they’re experimenting, how they’re leading, and how they’re doing the things that they do. Join us here on The Experimental Leader and step into leadership with confidence and the knowledge to start leading the experiment today!

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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. Fear not. Let Melanie Parish and Mel Rutherford be your guide to becoming the leader you were meant to be – an experimental leader! A public speaker, consultant, workshop leader, author, and Master Certified Coach through the International Coach Federation, from whom she received the Prism Award, Melanie is an expert in problem-solving, constraints management, operations, strategic hiring, and brand development. She has consulted and coached organizations ranging from a Fortune 50 company to IT start-ups receiving their first round of funding. Her individual clients include those in FAANG and other top global IT companies. Melanie is a Certified Professional Coactive Coach and, Organization and Relationship Systems Certified Coach, and a Theory of Constraints Certified Jonah. As an author, educator, and creator of The Experimental Leader program, Melanie shows people new ways of thinking about their leadership, informed by her understanding of the fast-paced ride of technology innovation. A professor in the Department of Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour, and Canada Research Chair in Social Perception. Dr. Mel Rutherford graduated from Yale University and earned a Ph.D. in Psychology with an emphasis in Human Development from the University of California at Santa Barbara. A Fulbright Fellowship allowed Dr. Rutherford to study and collaborate with the well-known Simon Baron-Cohen in Cambridge, England. Dr. Rutherford also worked with Bruce Pennington and Sally Rogers at the University of Denver as a postdoctoral fellow. He now heads a dynamic research laboratory at McMaster University. Dr. Rutherford is well-known for research in the field of psychology and has been interviewed and quoted in The Globe and Mail, The London Times, The Chicago Times, CBC Radio, Quirks and Quarks, and The Discovery Channel, as well as many AP newspapers around the world. Get rid of the fear and doubt, and shift your leadership into something that works better. Every week, learn from top leaders about how they’re experimenting, how they’re leading, and how they’re doing the things that they do. Join us here on The Experimental Leader and step into leadership with confidence and the knowledge to start leading the experiment today!

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Leading Through Collective Wisdom with Paulo Gregory

Leading Through Collective Wisdom with Paulo Gregory