How to Lead High Performers in a Dysfunctional Organization

7 Job Hunting Tips for Ambitious Women to Use

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 [https://leadtosoarpodcast.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Leaders Are Measuring the Wrong Things and Women Are Paying for It.

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. [http://women.In] In [http://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 [https://www.gallup.com/workplace/349484/state-of-the-global-workplace.aspx] Join Lead to Soar [https://leadtosoar.network/landing] Get full access to Lead to Soar Podcast at leadtosoarpodcast.substack.com/subscribe [https://leadtosoarpodcast.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Feminist Awakening: How to Turn Anger at Work Into a Career Strategy

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 [https://www.thenoclub.com] by Linda Babcock, Brenda Peyser, Lise Vesterlund and Laurie Weingart. Get full access to Lead to Soar Podcast at leadtosoarpodcast.substack.com/subscribe [https://leadtosoarpodcast.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Why Your Boss's Brand Is Now Your Problem Too

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 [https://leadtosoarpodcast.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

How to Lead High Performers in a Dysfunctional Organization

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 [https://leadtosoarpodcast.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]