Lead to Soar

Somebody has to clean up after a technology moving faster than the people responsible for it can manage, and that job keeps landing on women, unpaid and uncredentialed. Kara Bombell, co-founder of Ethic AI and a former chief operations officer, joins Michelle and Mel to unpack the difference between a company genuinely disrupted by AI and a poorly performing company using AI as cover, why caution about AI got read as women falling behind rather than paying attention, and the shift from "human in the loop" to "human at the helm" as a better way to think about your own authority over these tools. They also cover two things you can build with AI in your own role this month, no technical background required. About Kara: Kara Bombell spent years inside large corporates and consulting for blue-chip companies before co-founding Ethic AI, where she works with resource-constrained organisations, including not-for-profits, government and child safety services, to embed AI responsibly. Get full access to Lead to Soar Podcast at leadtosoarpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

This episode takes the "world-class CEO" conversation personal: what does it look like if a CEO with that calibre of judgement took over your life the way they'd take over a business? Mel puts herself forward as the test case, and Michelle runs the exercise live, on air. Mel's life gets mapped the way she'd map it herself: her career and finances under BQ, her relationships under SQ, and her emotional wellbeing and health under EQ. Michelle opens the way she'd open any real engagement, not with advice, but with the same first question: where are you now, and where do you want to get to? Inside this episode: the design thinking chronology exercise Michelle built during her MBA and still uses today; the positional purpose question, what are you actually paid to do, and why it applies to every role, not just the ones with a sales target; the four things every CEO tracks, cash, growth, return and customer; a concrete way to set a financial goal and close the gap to it; and the disease to please, and why being liked and being respected are not the same test. A version of the positional purpose exercise is running in the Lead to Soar Network this month, tracking a week's worth of hours against the same question Michelle asks Mel on the show. Get full access to Lead to Soar Podcast at leadtosoarpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

Are we actually looking at CEOs the right way? No, we're not. We're doing it inside a patriarchal context, inside a capitalist system, and calling the result "world-class." Mel and Michelle went looking for a definition that holds up outside that frame and couldn't find one, so this episode builds one from scratch: BQ as the floor, EQ and SQ as the accelerant, and the safe-pair-of-hands test every leader claiming the title should have to pass. Get full access to Lead to Soar Podcast at leadtosoarpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

Being praised as a good team player feels rewarding. Michelle Redfern and Mel Butcher call out what it actually costs this episode: a tax on women who’ve been socialised to say yes, one that rarely shows up in your pay or your title. Two women in engineering consulting were asked to take on more work without extra pay. One agreed to become the “office manager,” took on the workload, and ended up stuck. The other said no, in writing, calmly and clearly, and protected her progression instead. From there, Michelle walks through her “stop, breathe, reflect” framework: three questions to run before you agree to anything new. In this episode: * Why women pay the good girl tax, and what it costs in the long term * Two stories: one costly yes, one considered no * Three questions to test whether new work builds your career or just your workload A script for buying time before you answer Free resource: The Career Progression Evidence Test . Take it, then let Mel and Michelle know what came up for you. The Lead to Soar Network Lead to Soar equips women with the Business (BQ), Emotional (EQ), and Social (SQ) intelligence required to be recognised, trusted, and promoted. We do not fix women. We build capability and redesign systems so talent rises. How We Drive Impact A global leadership accelerator for ambitious women. Members gain: • Weekly group coaching that solves real business challenges • Practical tools to strengthen BQ, EQ, and SQ • Strategic networking with women who are serious about outcomes • Direct access to globally recognised experts in women’s advancement Result : women negotiate pay raises, secure executive roles, strengthen commercial credibility, and become visible for strategic impact. For organisations, the Network functions as a scalable, cost-effective leadership pipeline solution. Paid subscribers get a 3-month guest pass - message Michelle to access your pass. Get full access to Lead to Soar Podcast at leadtosoarpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

Michelle ran an experiment. She asked Gemini and Claude the same question, at the same time: how do I ask my manager for a pay rise? Gemini's answer was generic and gendered: just be bold, ask for what you want. No mention of the barriers women navigate to be heard as credible in the first place. Claude's answer looked completely different, but not because one platform beats the other. Michelle's Claude carries months of her own directives about what a business-savvy, woman-first answer actually looks like. That's the real subject of this episode: what your AI defaults to when you don't intervene, and what to do about it. Michelle and Mel cover how to prompt for advice that accounts for structural barriers rather than erasing them, a practical exercise for turning technical work into an executive-ready summary, and a warning for leaders: AI is already shaping pay, performance and promotion decisions in your organisation, mostly without anyone checking how. Leaders: read the paper, then take the audit , both linked in the show notes. Lead to Soar Network members get Michelle's full prompt library, including the exercises mentioned above. Get full access to Lead to Soar Podcast at leadtosoarpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

Mel sits down with English and rhetoric professor Dr Jenny Young, whose Burn the Haystack method teaches women to read the language men use on dating apps for what it actually reveals. This conversation goes well past dating: toxic rhetorical patterns, the "test and apologise" tactic, and why a boss who lowered everyone else's chair three inches is doing the same thing as a man who glares down at the camera in his profile photo. Contains direct discussion of dating apps, sexual testing tactics and abusive relationship dynamics. Get full access to Lead to Soar Podcast at leadtosoarpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

Executive women are still judged against a narrow idea of what credible leadership looks and sounds like. Warmth can be mistaken for a lack of commercial acumen, authority can be interpreted as aggression, and likeability can become part of an assessment that should be about capability and results. In this episode of Lead to Soar , Michelle Redfern and Mel Butcher explore what happens when women refuse to assimilate into workplace cultures built around hard-coded gender stereotypes. They discuss why warm, energetic and relational women are so often underestimated, how BQ, EQ and SQ shape leadership credibility, and how women can read the room and make their value unmistakable while staying connected to who they are. Truth Bomb: organisations keep mistaking warmth for a lack of business acumen, then lose commercially capable women to competitors with better judgment. Michelle and Mel also share practical language women can use when feedback starts sounding more like a style preference than a serious assessment of leadership. Get full access to Lead to Soar Podcast at leadtosoarpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

The conversation about non-promotable tasks does not end when women reach the executive table. It just gets more expensive. In Episode 229, Mel and Michelle take the office housework conversation somewhere it rarely goes: into the C-suite and executive tier, where the stakes are higher, the patterns are harder to see, and the costs show up in titles, salary bands, and what you actually spend your days doing. Michelle shares her own experience of being the only woman on an executive team of eight, holding a lesser title than all seven of her male peers, and becoming the unofficial coaching hub for the entire organisation because her male colleagues sent her their problems and kept the interesting (aka promotable) work for themselves. The episode covers two layers of this problem: women being structurally channelled into enabling roles with no P&L responsibility, and the informal offloading of people management and emotional labour onto the woman who said yes once and never quite stopped. It also delivers a practical BQ gap analysis to help you name what is happening and have a fact-based conversation with someone who can do something about it. And there is a direct word for decision-makers. If you are tolerating senior leaders who abdicate their people responsibilities onto the nearest woman, this one is also for you. Get full access to Lead to Soar Podcast at leadtosoarpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

There's a question Michelle puts to every group of women she works with on leadership reputation: what would your boss say about you? The answers are almost always the same. Helpful. Dependable. Reliable. Great team player. And then silence where strategic, consequential, and trusted with outcomes should be. This episode is about that silence and what breaks it. Mel and Michelle dig into three things women leaders need to get right to change how they're seen at work: knowing your no, delegation as a financial and strategic skill rather than a management preference, and understanding your positional purpose what do they actually pay you to do around here? The gap between being liked and being a woman of consequence is not a confidence problem. It's a clarity problem. This episode addresses it directly. Self-assessment link below. https://www.research.net/r/WhatsYourRep Get full access to Lead to Soar Podcast at leadtosoarpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

The answer most women get when they've outgrown their role is one of two things: be patient, or go find something better. Mel and Michelle don't buy either as a default response. In this episode they work through the third option. Using the real story of a CFO-ready executive who's been blocked by an incumbent boss for two years, they break down three practical moves: closing your readiness gap through targeted professional development, lifting your team so you can operate above your current level, and extending your influence well beyond your immediate lane. This is a career strategy conversation for women who are delivering, have capacity, and are ready for the role above. The actual moves to make while the door above you stays closed. Get full access to Lead to Soar Podcast at leadtosoarpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

Radical transparency is not just a leadership style. For women at work, it is a structural advantage. When leaders commit to genuine transparency, the conditions that have historically worked against women start to shift. Pay gaps narrow when salaries are visible. Promotion processes become fair when the criteria are clear. Information networks open up when knowledge is shared, not hoarded. In Episode 226, Mel and Michelle explore what radical transparency actually looks like in practice, what it produces for teams and organisations, and why women are among its greatest beneficiaries regardless of the gender of the leader practising it. This one came directly from the Lead to Soar community. A member shared her CEO's approach to radical transparency in Hour of Power, and the conversation was too good to stay in the room. Get full access to Lead to Soar Podcast at leadtosoarpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

This one is a little different. No frameworks. No research papers. Just Mel and Michelle getting real about what actually sustains them when life is heavy, and the load is relentless. They cover sleep as serious infrastructure, not a lifestyle indulgence. The quiet shift away from alcohol and what that has actually changed. Movement that brings genuine joy rather than punishing obligation. And the particular exhaustion of being a woman who was raised to cope and never to ask. Honest, warm, and genuinely useful. Sometimes the most feminist thing you can do is take care of yourself so you can keep showing up. Books referenced: The Future of Sleep by Catherine Ball, Quit Like a Woman by Holly Whitaker, The Sleep Revolution by Arianna Huffington. Get full access to Lead to Soar Podcast at leadtosoarpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

Job hunting hell is real. Submitting applications into the void, waiting, hearing nothing, wondering what is going wrong. Mel and Michelle are here with the tough love answer. A significant chunk of advertised roles are not real openings. AI-assisted applications are not the edge anyone thinks they are. And online applications are the career equivalent of throwing your CV into the wind. This episode covers the 7 job hunting tips that actually work, including how to crack the hidden job market, make courageous asks, leverage your network with intent, and pick up the damn phone. Get full access to Lead to Soar Podcast at leadtosoarpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

Leaders are measuring the wrong things. The work that holds organisations together, the mentoring, the client salvage, the culture-building, the covering, the onboarding, does not fit neatly into a KPI. So it goes uncounted. And the people doing it are, consistently and disproportionately, women. In episode 223, Mel and Michelle make the leadership case for fixing this. Leaders who expect this work from their teams must measure it, compensate it, and distribute it equitably. The Gallup State of the Global Workplace Report is unambiguous: women are more engaged than men in every region in the world. They are also reporting significantly higher rates of daily stress and sadness. That data tells you exactly what this imbalance is costing. This episode covers what leaders must audit, what metrics apply to work that feels nebulous, and what role design looks like when a leader gets it right. If you are a woman navigating this and want people in your corner, the Lead to Soar Network is where you bring it. Gallup Report Join Lead to Soar Get full access to Lead to Soar Podcast at leadtosoarpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

A young lawyer has just been pulled aside about her billable hours. Her male partner at the same firm, same credentials, has not had that conversation. He also hasn't been asked to mentor the grads, organise anything, or carry any of the work that holds a team together, but shows up nowhere in the performance data. She has been asked to do all of it. The gap in their billable hours did not happen by accident. In this episode, Mel and Michelle walk through the four phases of feminist consciousness, from oblivion to awareness to outrage to advocacy. They break down the office housework problem, look at a feedback conversation that didn't register the way it was intended, and lay out what leaders must actually do when non-promotable work keeps piling up on women's plates. Recommended reading: The No Club: Putting a Stop to Women's Dead End Work by Linda Babcock, Brenda Peyser, Lise Vesterlund and Laurie Weingart. Get full access to Lead to Soar Podcast at leadtosoarpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

Your boss's brand doesn't stay contained to your boss. If they're seen as an order-taker, someone who receives agendas rather than shaping them, that lens gets applied to your team. Your work gets filtered through their credibility before it reaches anyone with real decision-making power. In Episode 221, Mel and Michelle break down what to do when the people around you don't have the influence you need them to have. They cover how to read the warning signs early, how to coach upward strategically, and why business acumen is the gate-opener for influence that actually sticks. Get full access to Lead to Soar Podcast at leadtosoarpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

What happens when your team is genuinely excellent but the organisation around it is a mess? In this episode, Michelle and Mel unpack a real coaching scenario: a high-performing project management team that had convinced itself the problem was its own communication skills. It wasn't. The problem was accomplishment amnesia, structural invisibility, and a leadership layer that hadn't yet connected delivery to business outcomes. Michelle shares the frameworks she used in that room, why middle managers need to be both a bulldozer and a barrier, how to articulate your team's value in the language of outcomes, and what it takes to know when the ledger has tipped too far and it's time to pass the baton. This one is for every leader who's ever been the best-kept secret in their own organisation. Get full access to Lead to Soar Podcast at leadtosoarpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

Business Insider launched a series called "Hot at Work." Susan Colantuono called it what it is: a content delivery system dressed as journalism, selling women an invoice and calling it empowerment. Mel and Michelle got involved. This episode takes the glam tax apart. That is the additional cost women pay just to participate in professional life. It covers the money (one woman spends $12,000 a year on Botox, hair, nails, and fitness), the math (invest that at average market returns over 20 years and you're looking at close to $780,000), and the newest entry on the list: lifting weights to prove you belong in the executive suite. Who taught you to feel not good enough? And who profits from it? No judgment. Just information. Make an informed choice. Mel and Michelle are on Substack. Subscribe to Lead to Soar for every episode, editorial, and truth bomb. If you want direct access to Mel, Michelle, and a community of women asking the same questions, the Lead to Soar Network is where that conversation happens. Get full access to Lead to Soar Podcast at leadtosoarpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

Patriarchy Chicken is a game women have been playing for decades. British historian Professor Charlotte Riley gave it a name. Michelle gave it a T-shirt moment on the streets of Melbourne. In this episode, Mel and Michelle take the concept straight into the workplace: who gets interrupted, whose ideas get claimed, which jobs get handed to men before any woman has a chance to apply. They break down the moves that actually work in the room, and why holding your ground alone is much harder than building a deliberate, collective strategy to do it together. Want more? Every episode and editorial goes to all subscribers. To get direct access to Mel, Michelle, and the Lead to Soar Network community, join as a monthly or annual subscriber. Find out more at the link below. https://bit.ly/4rmjqiW Get full access to Lead to Soar Podcast at leadtosoarpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

Women leaders are over-mentored and under-promoted. The mechanism that actually closes that gap is sponsorship, and there is a significant difference between the two. In Episode 217, Mel and Michelle break down what sponsorship is, how it works in practice, what ambitious women need to do to earn it, and what leaders with the power to sponsor need to hear. Essential listening if career progression is serious for you. If you found this useful, please do share it with a woman who needs to hear it. Free subscriber? The conversation continues on the Lead to Soar Podcast, with new episodes every week. Consider upgrading to a paid Substack subscription to get full access to every editorial, every episode, every week. Already a paid subscriber? The Lead to Soar Network is where the work goes deeper. Coaching, community, and the people who take this stuff seriously. Come find us. Get full access to Lead to Soar Podcast at leadtosoarpodcast.substack.com/subscribe