The Science of Leading

Smart leaders often confuse speed with decisiveness, but rushed calls can hide weak assumptions and poor process. This episode breaks down decision-making traps, the four types of decisions, and simple frameworks like decision rights and LAAL to help teams move faster after the logic is clear.

This episode breaks down the hidden ripple effects of a single bad hire and why reactive recruiting can quietly damage culture, morale, and performance. It also explores how structured interviews, work samples, and clearer role definitions make hiring both more predictive and more equitable.

Five standout hires can still underperform if roles are muddy, handoffs break down, and no one knows who gets to decide. This episode digs into the real ingredients of strong teams: shared purpose, clear decision rights, trust, psychological safety, and accountability.

This episode explores how AI sourcing can uncover passive candidates and expand talent pools beyond keyword searches. It also digs into the risks of automated bias, ranking gravity, and why transparent, auditable human oversight is essential.

This episode explores how AI is reshaping recruitment, from résumé screening and ranking to ad delivery and automated decision-making. It also examines the risks of proxy-based hiring, hidden bias, and why trustworthy systems need transparency, accountability, and room for contestation.

We unpack how AI has become standard infrastructure in recruiting, reshaping the funnel from sourcing to scheduling to candidate communication. The conversation also explores where automation helps most, where human judgment still matters, and why structured process design now matters more than ever.

Claire Monroe and Edwin Carrington unpack why experience, pedigree, and instinct often predict performance far less than managers assume, and how newer research has refined—but not overturned—the case for structured, job-relevant hiring methods. They also explain why work samples, structured interviews, and observable skills produce stronger, fairer decisions than unstructured conversations or rés...

Claire Monroe and Edwin Carrington unpack how hostile work environments can begin in the hiring process, from excusing abrasive behavior to confusing “fit” with familiarity. They also break down the EEOC standards for harassment, supervisor liability, and retaliation, then share practical interview red flags leaders should watch for.

Most hiring teams focus on asking better questions. Fewer realize their answers are being evaluated just as closely. In this episode, Claire and Edwin break down how interviews function as a two-way diagnostic tool—and why strong candidates are using them to assess clarity, leadership, and operational structure inside your organization.

Claire Monroe and Edwin Carrington break down how smart interview questions do more than gather information—they expose role clarity, team dynamics, and the realities of a company’s operating culture. They also share practical prompts candidates and hiring managers can use to uncover performance expectations, hidden bottlenecks, and the signals that matter most.

Claire Monroe and Edwin Carrington break down why many communication assessments measure polish instead of performance, and how that leads hiring teams to miss candidates who can actually create clarity, listen well, and de-escalate tension on the job. They then lay out a better approach: job analysis, realistic work samples, standardized prompts, and anchored rubrics that score observable behavio...

Claire Monroe and Edwin Carrington unpack why interviews often confuse charisma with real communication ability, and why that can lead hiring teams astray. They share practical ways to assess job-relevant communication through structured work samples, clear rubrics, and role-specific scenarios that reveal how candidates actually perform.

This episode breaks down the interview questions that reveal whether a manager can actually lead under pressure, from handling underperformance and conflict to delegating effectively and motivating different personalities. It also shows how structured interviews and clear rubrics help organizations judge judgment, accountability, and results instead of getting dazzled by charisma.

This episode breaks down why vague “fit” judgments often mask familiarity, bias, and charisma, and why they can outweigh real evidence. It also lays out a better interview system built on behavioral, technical, and values-based questions, plus standardized scorecards and follow-up.

A flexible 9/80 schedule can boost retention and improve work-life balance, but only when leaders focus on outcomes, fairness, and clear coverage rules. This episode also breaks down the operational and compliance details that make or break a rollout, from overtime and handoffs to pilot goals and employee feedback.

Claire Monroe and Edwin Carrington break down why most interviews reward confidence, charisma, and bias instead of real hiring signal. They explain how structured interviews, standardized questions, and clear rubrics improve fairness, comparability, and predictive validity. The conversation also explores the three core hiring attributes—role-related knowledge, problem solving, and leadership—and h...

This episode unpacks why polished interviews so often miss the mark and how unstructured hiring can reward charm over actual job behavior. It also explores how structured interviews, clear scoring, and careful use of AI can improve fairness and prediction without scaling bias.

Claire Monroe and Edwin Carrington unpack how personality assessments can improve hiring when they’re used as decision support—not as a shortcut or verdict. They explore the Big Five, the dangers of “culture fit” and type labels, and a practical workflow for combining assessments with structured interviews and work samples.

This episode breaks down Google’s Project Aristotle and the surprising finding that team performance depends less on star talent than on how people interact. It explores psychological safety, why silence can hide problems, and the practical habits leaders can use to build stronger, more effective teams.

In this episode of The Science of Leading, Claire and Edwin move from theory to execution with a clear 90-day roadmap for measuring teamwork without turning your culture into a surveillance state. Building on the foundations of what to measure and why, they walk through a practical rollout plan that busy HR leaders and line managers can actually implement. Across three chapters, they cover how to...

This episode of The Science of Leading tackles a blind spot many HR leaders and executives share: we celebrate "strong culture" and "great teams," but rarely measure whether teamwork is actually driving results. Claire and Edwin unpack a practical, behavior-based framework for evaluating teamwork that goes beyond vibes, personality labels, or annual performance rituals. They explore why high engag...

Most leaders have tried a personality test at some point. But when it comes to real decisions—who to hire, how to coach, why a team keeps clashing—those colorful types and labels don’t give you enough to actually change anything. In this episode of The Science of Leading, Claire Monroe and Edwin Carrington unpack the OAD Survey: an adjective-based, workplace-focused assessment that separates who s...

In this episode of The Science of Leading, Claire and Edwin dive into why so many leadership performance reviews feel like vague narratives—and how HR and People Ops can replace them with a structured, defensible leadership review template. They unpack what a strong leadership evaluation sample should include, from role context and business priorities to concrete outcomes, observable leadership be...

In this episode of The Science of Leading, Claire and Edwin walk through a practical, research-backed journey for boosting team performance that starts with better measurement—not louder pep talks. They unpack what “team performance” really means beyond vibes, why many organizations don’t have a performance problem so much as a measurement problem, and how leaders can move from individual heroics...

In this episode of The Science of Leading, Claire and Edwin unpack why so many performance reviews feel unfair, political, or just plain useless—and what leaders can do about it. Drawing on OAD’s performance evaluation framework, they break down the most common pitfalls in team and individual reviews: recency bias and halo/horns effects, personality-based judgments disguised as "fit," confusing ef...