Lead to Soar

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 Epi...

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...

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 episo...

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 wor...

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...

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...

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 d...

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...

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...

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...

Last week Mel and Michelle called out the problem. This week they talk about what women can actually do about it. Six strategies for navigating a workplace that was never designed for women. From getting clear on where you actually stand, to building the business acumen that makes you harder to dismiss, to knowing when it is time to cut your losses and make a strategic move. This is not a fix your...

Mel and Michelle have been saying "fix the system, not the women" for years. In this episode, they make it concrete. Five signs your workplace is the problem: from merit myths and meaningless confidence feedback, to the global DEI rollback and cultures built on silence. No Pollyanna. No platitudes. Just a sharp, direct conversation for women navigating a world that was never designed with them in...

Most networking events for women are lazy. Not malicious. Lazy. Someone books a venue, lines up a speaker, fills the room with wine and canapés, and expects the magic to happen. It doesn't. And the women in the room get blamed for not working the crowd hard enough. In this episode, Mel Butcher and Michelle Redfern take a sharp look at what actually makes a gathering work, using Priya Parker's The...

"I don't have time" is one of the most common things Michelle hears from leaders across every level, every sector, every cohort. In this episode, Michelle and Mel get into what high BQ leaders actually do differently with their time and why "too busy" is often less about workload and more about prioritisation failures, people-pleasing, and a reluctance to push back on what lands on your plate. Inc...

In this solo episode, Mel Butcher responds to two questions she has been asked by women in her network: one about whether to hide years of experience to avoid being judged as too young, and one about whether to anglicise a name on a resume to improve the odds of getting an interview. Both questions sit on top of the same structural reality: ageism and identity bias are real, documented, and operat...

In this episode of Lead to Soar, Michelle Redfern and Mel Butcher discuss Moral Ambition by Rutger Bregman. The conversation centres on Bregman’s critique of so-called “b******t jobs” — roles that are well-paid, high-status, and socially approved, yet exist largely to protect power, manage perception, or maintain systems rather than improve outcomes. Rather than focusing on individual morality, th...

Ambition has acquired a negative connotation for women. Openly ambitious women are (too) often seen as selfish, excessive, or dangerous. At the same time, women are encouraged to be patient, resilient, and grateful, even as they navigate systems that are inherently resistant to change and unfair. In this episode of Lead to Soar , Mel Butcher and Michelle Redfern cut through the b******t and get re...

Let’s cut through the noise. International Women’s Day comes around. Brands share purple graphics. Panels discuss “empowerment.” Meanwhile, women’s rights are being eroded worldwide. So Mel Butcher asked the only question that matters: Who made you free? Michelle Redfern talks about her Nana and her Mum. She also discusses the women who made it possible for her to open a bank account, start a busi...

If you’re about to run annual objectives with your team, you are holding a leadership moment in your hands. You can make it clear and useful, or you can end up with a set of goals that might look “nice” but not create the outcomes you want this year. In this episode, Mel and Michelle discuss the mindset Michelle used as a manager. “This is a discussion about a new contract. We’re contracting for o...

Delegation is not about doing less. Delegation means leading at the level you want to be recognised for. In this episode, Mel and Michelle analyse a pattern we see over and over again in women’s careers. Talented, committed leaders become indispensable by excelling at execution, only to find that the very behaviour that got them promoted is now holding them back. Being the “go-to expert” feels saf...

We’re told (too often in our opinion) that the new year is about resolutions. Do more. Be better. Fix yourself. In this episode, we challenge that narrative and talk about what genuinely supports change over time. Reflective practice sits at the heart of effective leadership, yet many women are rarely given the space or structure to do it well. Michelle introduces The Life Audit , a practical tool...

Subscribe now “Be authentic at work” is some of the most commonly given career advice, and some of the most dangerous, especially for women and others without structural power. In this episode Michelle Redfern and Mel Butcher call b******t on the idea that honesty and openness are always safe or rewarded at work. Instead, they explore what smart people actually do when life collides with work, and...

Performance reviews are meant to assess contribution, results, and business impact. Yet for many women, they become subjective conversations about tone, confidence, or how they “come across.” In Episode 204, Michelle Redfern and Mel Butcher discuss why women are disproportionately judged on personality rather than performance, and what that means for career progression. Drawing on research and liv...

As Pride Month 2026 approaches, we wanted to resurface this episode and send it to everyone so that they know exactly how to be a great ally to the rainbow community. If you consider yourself supportive of the LGBTIQA+ community but aren’t always sure what meaningful allyship looks like in practice, this episode is for you. In this solo episode of Lead to Soar , Michelle Redfern speaks directly to...

Visibility does not equal influence. In this episode of the Lead to Soar Podcast, Michelle Redfern explains why many women leaders are seen and heard, yet still overlooked when it comes to power, promotion, and decision-making. Drawing on The Leadership Compass , she outlines how strategic visibility, grounded in business impact, credibility, and judgment, is what shifts women from contributors to...