
The Evolving Leader
Jean Gomes and Scott Allender
1 Creator
1 Creator
The Evolving Leader Podcast is a show set in the context of the world’s ‘great transition’ – technological, environmental and societal upheaval – that requires deeper, more committed leadership to confront the world’s biggest challenges. Hosts, Jean Gomes (a New York Times best selling author) and Scott Allender (an award winning leadership development specialist working in the creative industries) approach complex topics with an urgency that matches the speed of change. This show will give insights about how today’s leaders can grow their capacity for leading tomorrow’s rapidly evolving world. With accomplished guests from business, neuroscience, psychology, and more, the Evolving Leader Podcast is a call to action for deep personal reflection, and conscious evolution. The world is evolving, are you?
A little more about the hosts:
New York Times best selling author, Jean Gomes, has more than 30 years experience working with leaders and their teams to help them face their organisation’s most challenging issues. His clients span industries and include Google, BMW, Toyota, eBay, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Warner Music, Sony Electronics, Alexander McQueen, Stella McCartney, the UK Olympic system and many others.
Award winning leadership development specialist, Scott Allender has over 20 years experience working with leaders across various businesses, including his current role heading up global leadership development at Warner Music. An expert practitioner in emotional intelligence and psychometric tools, Scott has worked to help teams around the world develop radical self-awareness and build high performing cultures.
The Evolving Leader podcast is produced by Phil Kerby at Outside © 2024
The Evolving Leader music is a Ron Robinson composition, © 2022
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Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best The Evolving Leader episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to The Evolving Leader for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite The Evolving Leader episode by adding your comments to the episode page.

Both/And Thinking with Marianne Lewis
The Evolving Leader
03/15/23 • 57 min
In this episode of the Evolving Leader podcast, co-hosts Jean Gomes and Scott Allender talk to Marianne Lewis. Marianne is dean and professor of management at the Lindner College of Business, University of Cincinnati having previously served as dean of Cass (now Bayes) Business School at City University, London, and as a Fulbright scholar. A thought leader in organizational paradoxes, she explores tensions and competing demands surrounding leadership and innovation. Marianne has been recognized among the world’s most-cited researchers in her field (Web of Science) and received the Paper of the Year award (2000) and Decade Award (2021) from the Academy of Management Review.
Marianne Lewis’s book (co-author with Wendy K Smith) ‘Both/And Thinking: Embracing Creative Tensions to Solve Your Toughest Problems’ was published in 2022.
0.00 Introduction
4.36 Can you give us an overview of your work?
5.22 How do you distinguish between tensions, dilemmas, and the paradoxes in our lives?
7.16 Why is it so important to be working on paradox right now for leaders?
9.13 Can you walk us through the four types of paradox that you identify and how we experience them?
14.01 How does either/or thinking cause issues for leaders and can you give us some examples of how that sets us up to fail?
19.10 The trench warfare, or the war of defences seems to be prevalent in politics right now. What do you think is causing that either/or thinking?
21.26 You describe a pros and cons list as being one of the mechanisms that encourages either/or thinking. What other mental shortcuts are leaders and others taking that encourages either/or thinking?
26.05 How do we enable both/and thinking?
34.58 You mention that it’s not easy to look at the assumptions that we should consider if we want to build this paradox mindset. Why is that and how have you helped leaders find a different way forward?
39.48 Knowing that people want to move away from negatively experienced emotions, what other tactics or approaches do you take with leaders to arrive at this alternative approach without moving away from those negative emotions?
46.20 Organisations are designed primarily to align resources with their goals and minimise risk. Can you tell us about how your research and ideas can help leaders think about structures to stabilise the organisation in the face of uncertainty?
50.33 Can you tell us about the research you’re doing into how individuals manage building a paradox mindset?
54.19 Did you find a difference in motivations behind various people’s experience with either/or thinking?
Social:
Instagram @evolvingleader
LinkedIn The Evolving Leader Podcast
Twitter @Evolving_Leader
The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and Scott Allender with production by Phil Kerby. It is an Outside production.

The Invention of Tomorrow with Adam Bulley
The Evolving Leader
03/29/23 • 42 min
This week on the Evolving Leader podcast, co-hosts Jean Gomes and Scott Allender talk to Adam Bulley. Adam is a postdoctoral fellow at the Brain and Mind Centre and School of Psychology, The University of Sydney, and the Department of Psychology at Harvard University. In his research, Adam uses the tools of cognitive science to study the mind and human behaviour, with a focus on the evolution, development, and psychological mechanisms of imagination, foresight, decision-making, and emotion.
Adam Bulley’s first book ‘The Invention of Tomorrow’ which he co-wrote with Thomas Suddendorf and Jon Redshaw was published in 2022.
During the conversation, Adam also references the following books:
The Optimist's Telescope: Thinking Ahead in a Reckless Age (Bina Venkataraman, Riverhead 2020)
The Long View: Why We Need to Transform How the World Sees Time (Richard Fisher, Wildfire 2023)
0.00 Introduction
2.58 Can you start by telling us about yourself and what led you into your research and career?
4.21 Let’s dive into your book ‘The Invention of Tomorrow. Can you give us your pitch for the book, who is this book for and what will your audience gain from reading it?
6.02 We take our ability to think about the future for granted, but how and why do you think this remarkable capability evolved?
8.56 What would have happened to our species had we not evolved this human foresight capability?
10.33 What role does memory play in foresight?
13.27 So let’s skip back to how foresight and innovation are intwined with one another. Can you bring to light some of the research and how you’ve come to understand how that relationship works?
15.32 What have you learned about how this ability impacts our morality?
17.27 As children we have amazing imaginations from an early age but our ability to envisage our responsibility takes longer to develop. So how do things like metacognition (our ability to imagine what that looks like from somebody else’s perspective) sit alongside foresight?
19.35 What have you learnt about our capacity to harness this and improve it? Is this a muscle that can be improved?
22.35 You mention short termism and our ability to ignore our foresight. What has your research uncovered about the profound mistakes that we can make when choosing to ignore foresight?
27.02 One of our former guests, futurologist Monika Bieleskyte believes that the role of the futurologist should be to try and create positive optimistic scenarios that we can get behind. How do you feel that our capacity for foresight works with that?
30.23 How much of our brain’s foresight is routed in our own subjective biased view of reality?
34.01 What have you learnt about foresight and wellbeing and what can we take forward from that?
36.33 How can we get more effective and efficient at testing our assumptions about the future and our ideas?
40.16 What are you working on at the moment? What’s next for you?
Social:
Instagram @evolvingleader
LinkedIn The Evolving Leader Podcast
Twitter @Evolving_Leader
The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and
.

Beyond great - How to build a brilliant team with Leon Smith (Pt 1)
The Evolving Leader
11/18/20 • 30 min
This is the first of a two part conversation that Jean has with tennis coach, Leon Smith. For the last decade, Leon has been the Great Britain Davis Cup captain and in 2015 he led the team to becoming world champions for the first time in 79 years.
In the first of these two episodes, Leon talks to Jean about what he's learned about leadership since starting coaching at 18 years of age.
Social:
Instagram @evolvingleader
LinkedIn The Evolving Leader Podcast

Connecting with our Future Selves with Hal Hershfield
The Evolving Leader
10/30/24 • 51 min
Have you ever wanted to travel through time and see what your life will be like in the future? While we want the best possible future for ourselves, we often fail to make decisions that would make that a reality. So why are so many of us so disconnected from our future selves?
This week on The Evolving Leader, co-hosts Jean Gomes and Scott Allender talk to psychologist Professor Hal Hershfield. Hal is Professor of Marketing, Behavioural Decision Making, and Psychology at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management and is committed to the work of helping people make better long-term decisions. In his 2023 book ‘Your Future Self: How to Make Tomorrow Better Today’ Hal explains that in our minds, our future selves often look like strangers. Many of us view the future as incredibly distant, making us more likely to opt for immediate gratification that disregards the health and wellbeing of ourselves in the years to come. He says that people who are able to connect with their future selves, however, are better able to balance living for today and planning for tomorrow.
This is a fascinating listen.
Referenced during this episode:
Your Future Self: How to Make Tomorrow Better Today
Other reading from Jean Gomes and Scott Allender:
Leading In A Non-Linear World (J Gomes, 2023)
The Enneagram of Emotional Intelligence (S Allender, 2023)
Social:
Instagram @evolvingleader
LinkedIn The Evolving Leader Podcast
Twitter @Evolving_Leader
YouTube @evolvingleader
The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and Scott Allender with production by Phil Kerby. It is an Outside production.

The Work/Life Flywheel with Ollie Henderson
The Evolving Leader
05/10/23 • 47 min
In this episode of the Evolving Leader podcast, co-hosts Jean Gomes and Scott Allender talk to future of work writer and speaker, business leader, best-selling author and podcaster Ollie Henderson. Ollie believes that work life balance is a myth, and instead sees career and personal life as two opposing forces. He argues that the secret is to design an integrated approach that allows them to work in harmony.
‘Work/Life Flywheel. Harness the Work Revolution and Reimagine Your Career Without Fear’
0.00 Introduction
3.54 It’s your birthday. Which musical artist (living or dead) would you invite to your party?
5.26 Tell us about your career to date?
8.56 You’ve experienced burnout and trying to understand what you’re feeling in that situation is difficult for a lot of people. What kind of consequences did that have on your life?
12.28 How long do you think were burnt out before you acknowledged it?
13.21 So you decided to leave your job and take up writing and at the same time a pandemic hit.
19.29 People are often afraid to make changes and you say that 75% of people are wanting to make big changes to their work lives. Why is that happening?
22.24 I’m interested in the data you collected. In the UK and many other countries there is currently a large focus on getting older people back in the workforce.
28.13 We’ve had lots of guests talking to us about various aspects of innovation. Is there anything that you’ve learnt about how we can get people to bring more of their creative and innovative self into our working environments?
32.21 Coming back to your three-year burnout, what have you adopted as practices to pay closer attention to what you are feeling and experiencing inside so you don’t find yourself going through another three year burnout before you acknowledge it?
40.17 [Ollie asks Scott and Jean] How much are people talking about the relationship between their work and personal life? Is this significant or are we reverting to how life was before the pandemic?
46.43 Where can people find the book and where can they find you?
Social:
Instagram @evolvingleader
LinkedIn The Evolving Leader Podcast
Twitter @Evolving_Leader
YouTube @evolvingleader2271
The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and Scott Allender with production by Phil Kerby. It is an Outside production.

Leading In The Storm with Emma Sky
The Evolving Leader
09/13/23 • 58 min
In this episode of The Evolving Leader podcast, co-hosts Jean Gomes and Emma Sinclair talk to Emma Sky. Emma is an expert on conflict, reconciliation and stability, and has worked mainly in the Middle East. She served in Iraq as the political advisor to US General Ray Odierno and General David Petraeus during the surge and is now Director of the International Leadership Center at Yale University, overseeing the Yale World Fellows program and other initiatives. Emma Sky is a Senior Fellow at Yale's Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, where she lectures on Middle East politics and global affairs.
SUGGESTED READING FROM THIS EPISODE:
The Unravelling: High Hopes and Missed Opportunities in Iraq (Emma Sky, 2015)
In a Time of Monsters: Travelling in a Middle East in Revolt (Emma Sky, 2019)
The Enneagram of Emotional Intelligence: A Journey to Personal and Professional Success (Scott Allender, 2023)
Social:
Instagram @evolvingleader
LinkedIn The Evolving Leader Podcast
Twitter @Evolving_Leader
YouTube @evolvingleader
The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and Scott Allender with production by Phil Kerby. It is an Outside production.

Creating Psychological Safety with Stephan Wiedner
The Evolving Leader
10/05/22 • 49 min
In this episode of the Evolving Leader podcast, co-hosts Scott Allender and Jean Gomes talk to psychological safety expert Stephan Wiedner. Stephan’s work focusses on developing sustainable high performance leaders, teams and organisations. He is cofounder of Noomii.com, Skillsetter.com and most recently Zarango.com with a published mission to ‘unleash the collective potential of people with the power of psychological safety’.
Here's a link to the free Psychological Safety Assessment mentioned by Stephan during this episode: https://zarango.com/freepsi/
0.00 Introduction
04.08 Can you give us a working definition of Psychological Safety?
05.08 In our experience, when leaders first encounter that, some may feel that making people feel ok isn’t always ok because there can be consequences. What’s your take on that?
06.34 So in your experience, what happens when leaders make the mistake of being incredibly nice but don’t hold teams to account to deliver?
07.16 Why psychological safety for you? What got you into this topic?
09.03 What is your assessment process?
10.30 So happens in those situations typically?
12.18 What does psychological safety deliver in terms of performance?
14.37 Amy Edmondson talks about creating the conditions so we’re able to have those conversations without the fear, so the desire outweighs the risk. Can we talk about the feeling of vulnerability that’s necessary in order to be able to do that?
17.51 How do you raise an honest level of awareness in the leader who is well intentioned but may be just not getting it right?
18.52 Can you tell us what the origins of ‘deliberate practice’ are and how it’s been applied in different fields?
21.59 Let’s talk about conflict. How do leaders with high safety and accountability teams tend to mitigate conflict or even encourage healthy conflict when appropriate?
24.24 How do you start to get leaders to recognise their part in perpetuating a culture where these things can’t really be aired?
27.55 What kind of things do you see when psychological safety starts to take root in an organisation?
29.38 What is the importance of safety combined with accountability in terms of unleashing exponential creativity?
33.33 How do you see psychological safety playing out across different generations?
38.07 Where do you think this field is going and what’s next in your work?
43.10 In your analysis, do you see any trends in terms of things that are changing in people’s reactions to different types of situations? Are some situations becoming more or less problematic, how are we evolving?
46.08 What deliberate practices are you engaging with at the moment?
48.15 How can our audience get in touch with you?
Social:
Instagram @evolvingleader
LinkedIn The Evolving Leader Podcast
Twitter @Evolving_Leader
Youtube Evolving Leader
The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and Scott Allender with production by Phil Kerby. It is an Outside production.

New Realities of an Exponential World with Azeem Azhar
The Evolving Leader
01/05/22 • 56 min
In this episode of the Evolving Leader podcast, co-hosts Jean Gomes and Scott Allender talk to entrepreneur, investor, and the creator of highly-regarded newsletter ‘Exponential View’ Azeem Azhar. Much of the world is witnessing radical societal change driven by exponential technologies that are transforming how we live and interact with one another and disrupting our economic and social norms in highly unpredictable ways. In his recent book ‘Exponential: How to Bridge the Gap Between Technology and Society’, Azeem Azhar describes the widening gap between technology and society and its ramifications.
Reading suggestion -
'Exponential: How to Bridge the Gap Between Technology and Society’, (Random House, 2021)
0.00 Introduction
2.30 Tell us about your journey and how that influenced your views regarding how new technologies are accelerating change and as a result creating an exponential gap between the impact they have on the world and the scope of our institutions and policies.
11.33 What is the central message in your book from a leadership perspective? What could business leaders learn from the book?
17.06 How do you start the conversation with a CEO who hasn’t started to consider the use of exponential technologies within their organisation?
20.17 At a time when mankind’s biggest challenge is tackling climate change, can you share what you’re seeing in terms of the conflict of technology, political will and capability.
24,45 Another huge risk to our future is AI enhanced warfare where (for example) humans could be excluded from making decisions which could lead to catastrophic escalations. Could you give us your view on how this is developing?
30.47 In your view, how is remote working transforming the world?
37.57 If we pause to think about the future Metaverse (with Facebook having recently rebranded to Meta), how do we prevent it from deepening the problems with mental health and wellbeing that are dogging social media at the moment?
43.39 Thinking about some of the other major players in the techspace (including Apple, Amazon and Microsoft), what do you think their evolution is going to look like in the next ten years?
46.57 As leaders, how are we going to manage the exponential gap?
53.52 What has excited you during the last 6-12 months?
Social:
Instagram @evolvingleader
LinkedIn The Evolving Leader Podcast
Twitter @Evolving_Leader
The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and Scott Allender with production by Phil Kerby. It is an Outside production.

How emotions are made with Lisa Feldman Barrett (Pt 1)
The Evolving Leader
12/02/20 • 44 min
This episode is part one of a two part conversation that Jean and Scott had with neuroscientist, Dr Lisa Feldman Barrett. University Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Northeastern University, and Chief Science Officer for the Center for Law, Brain and Behaviour at Harvard, Lisa Feldman Barrett, is profoundly changing our understanding of the brain and in particular, our emotions. Since the ancient philosophers, and into our last century of scientific endeavor, emotions have been seen as hard-wired responses to external stimuli, located in specific regions of the brain. Lisa’s work has over-turned this age-old model which shapes everything from our current beliefs about emotional intelligence to facial recognition software widely being deployed around the world.
Lisa Feldman Barrett has written two books, Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain (2020) and How Emotions are Made (2017), as well as hundreds of peer reviewed scientific papers appearing in Science, Nature Neuroscience and other top journals in psychology and cognitive neuroscience.
Social:
Instagram @evolvingleader
LinkedIn The Evolving Leader Podcast

SUMMER SHORTS: Sally Bolton (BONUS)
The Evolving Leader
08/06/24 • 3 min
This short comes from a conversation that co-hosts Jean Gomes and Scott Allender had with Sally Bolton back in March 2021 (S2 Ep6).
LISTEN TO THE ENTIRE CONVERSATION:
Heritage and Innovation at Wimbledon with CEO Sally Bolton
In this episode of the Evolving Leader podcast, co-hosts Jean Gomes and Scott Allender talk to Wimbledon CEO, Sally Bolton. Sally shares some of the leadership challenges that she has faced during her first 12 months as CEO of one of the world’s most prestigious sporting events, a year in which she had to take the decision to cancel the tournament for the first time since WWII due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Social:
Instagram @evolvingleader
LinkedIn The Evolving Leader Podcast
Twitter @Evolving_Leader
YouTube @evolvingleader
The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and Scott Allender with production by Phil Kerby. It is an Outside production.
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FAQ
How many episodes does The Evolving Leader have?
The Evolving Leader currently has 192 episodes available.
What topics does The Evolving Leader cover?
The podcast is about Ideas, Management, Society, Leadership, Neuroscience, Psychology, Entrepreneurship, Creativity, Personal Development, Podcasts, Business and Strategy.
What is the most popular episode on The Evolving Leader?
The episode title 'Conscious Capitalism with Anna Anderson' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on The Evolving Leader?
The average episode length on The Evolving Leader is 45 minutes.
How often are episodes of The Evolving Leader released?
Episodes of The Evolving Leader are typically released every 7 days.
When was the first episode of The Evolving Leader?
The first episode of The Evolving Leader was released on Aug 28, 2020.
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