The Evolving Leader – Détails, épisodes et analyse

In this bonus episode of The Evolving Leader podcast, co-hosts Scott Allender and Arjun Sahdev talk to Atif Rafiq, the first Chief Digital Officer in Fortune 500 history and former senior executive at McDonald’s, Volvo, and MGM Resorts. Now CEO and co-founder of Ritual, an AI-powered workflow platform, Atif shares how leaders can build decision-making systems that are faster, fairer, and more adaptive in an age of complexity. He explains his core principle of “exploration before alignment” and why premature agreement kills curiosity and weakens problem-solving.

Find out more about Atif Rafiq:

www.ritual.work

www.decisionsprint.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/atif1/

https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/re-wire-6765332215867031552/

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

The Evolving Leader is researched, written an

Send a message to The Evolving Leader team

After more than 5 years of hosting The Evolving Leader, Jean Gomes and Scott Allender are launching their new show The Mindset Economy in January 2026. The new show will explore how to live better, work smarter and be connected in a more uncertain world where machines can think. 

Available wherever you get your podcasts.

In this latest episode of The Evolving Leader podcast, Jean Gomes is joined by Mark Crowley, author of Lead from the Heart, to explore how emotion, belonging, and authentic care are redefining leadership for the modern world. Mark shares his remarkable personal journey, from an upbringing shaped by trauma to a career built on leading through compassion. We hear how what began as an instinctive way to give others what he never received became a philosophy now backed by neuroscience and organisational research.

Jean and Mark unpack why traditional engagement models are failing, how the science of emotion is reshaping our understanding of performance, and why belonging and care are now the greatest predictors of organisational health. 

This is a powerful conversation for leaders seeking to create cultures that elevate both human well-being and business results.

Further materials from Mark Crowley:

“Don’t Measure Employee Engagement—Support Employee Well-Being” (2025, Porchlight Book Company)

“5 Leadership Strategies To Help Teams Thrive Amid Uncertainty” (2025, Fast Company)

“Leaders don’t really care about employee engagement. Here’s why” (2024, Fast Company)

“How leaders can address the human energy crisis” (2023, Fast Company)

“Lead From The Heart: Transformational Leadership For The 21st Century” (2011, Balboa Press)

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

Bluesky            @evolvingleader.bsky.social

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.

Send a message to The Evolving Leader team

After more than 5 years of hosting The Evolving Leader, Jean Gomes and Scott Allender are launching their new show The Mindset Economy in January 2026. The new show will explore how to live better, work smarter and be connected in a more uncertain world where machines can think. 

Available wherever you get your podcasts.

In this episode of The Evolving Leader, Jean Gomes and Scott Allender are joined by renowned philosopher and theologian Alister McGrath to explore one of the most timeless and urgent questions: Why do we believe? Drawing on insights from his new book, Why We Believe: Finding Meaning in Uncertain Times, McGrath reflects on the nature of belief, the human need for meaning, and how our convictions shape who we are and how we lead.

The conversation takes us from McGrath’s early journey through science and Marxism to his later embrace of faith, to the cultural forces shaping our beliefs today from post-truth politics to techno-optimism. The episode explores how leaders can navigate complexity and uncertainty with grounded beliefs, curiosity, and empathy without succumbing to dogma or paralysis.

Whether you consider yourself a person of faith, reason, or somewhere in between, this episode invites you to reflect more deeply on what sustains you and how those beliefs can help you thrive in a rapidly evolving world.

Referenced during this episode:

Why We Believe: Finding Meaning In Uncertain Times (McGrath, 2025)

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

Bluesky            @evolvingleader.bsky.social

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.

Send a message to The Evolving Leader team

After more than 5 years of hosting The Evolving Leader, Jean Gomes and Scott Allender are launching their new show The Mindset Economy in January 2026. The new show will explore how to live better, work smarter and be connected in a more uncertain world where machines can think. 

Available wherever you get your podcasts.

In this episode of the Evolving Leader podcast, co-host Jean Gomes welcomes back former guest Will Page. Will is the former chief economist at both Spotify and PRS for Music, visiting fellow at London School of Economics and his widely acclaimed book ‘Tarzan Economics’ has just been published in paperback under the slightly different title ‘Pivot: Eight Principles for Transforming Your Business In A Time Of Disruption’.

Pivot: Eight Principles For Transforming Your Business In a Time of Disruption

Jo Caulfield ‘Supermarket loyalty card’ 

0.00 Introduction

2.14 Why has the title of the book changed for the paperback?

3.04 A quick summary of the eight principles.

5.39 You say in the book that these principles give us cause for optimism and even confidence. Can you talk about why that it?

11.38 Which is the principles would be most salient for our audience? 1. Big data, big mistakes.

17.27 How can we stop ourselves making a snap judgement or challenge the contradictions around data, and how do you hold that in your head in other forms of decision making?

19.42 2. The growing gig economy

23.57 Given the Tarzan Economics predictions, what do you think are the most likely few things that will change this year? 

27.20 How are these principles changing your life and mindset? How is it shaping your world?

Social:
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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.

Send a message to The Evolving Leader team

After more than 5 years of hosting The Evolving Leader, Jean Gomes and Scott Allender are launching their new show The Mindset Economy in January 2026. The new show will explore how to live better, work smarter and be connected in a more uncertain world where machines can think. 

Available wherever you get your podcasts.

In this episode of the Evolving Leader podcast, co-hosts Scott Allender and Jean Gomes take some time to discuss and reflect on a new definition of mindset. Scott also gets Jean to road test a new set of questions that (in future episodes) our two co-hosts will be asking guests about how they think, feel and see the world.

 ‘Leading In a Non-Linear World’ by Jean Gomes

 0’00 Introduction

3’27 We’re going to be questioning our guests on how they make sense of the world by building intentional mindsets to confront challenges that they face

5’22 Remind us what you mean by feel, think and see

10’16 How can people build the connective tissue between all of these things?

14’29 Testing the new questions on Jean : Q1. What have you learnt about your mindset as you have developed as a leader?

18’11 Q2. When and where have you seen others or yourself hold up the wrong lens to a situation? 

21’44 Q3. Can you recall any situations in your career where you and others made significant breakthroughs by challenging fundamental assumptions about what was possible, feasible or desirable? 

26’03 Q4. What is the primary way that you tune into you body to determine what’s happening?

30’37 Q5. Of all the mindsets that we build and need, what is the single biggest mindset challenge that you personally struggle with the most?

 Social:
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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.

Send a message to The Evolving Leader team

After more than 5 years of hosting The Evolving Leader, Jean Gomes and Scott Allender are launching their new show The Mindset Economy in January 2026. The new show will explore how to live better, work smarter and be connected in a more uncertain world where machines can think. 

Available wherever you get your podcasts.

In this episode of the Evolving Leader podcast, we’re pleased to welcome back our occasional host and friend of the podcast, Emma Sinclair. This week Emma is in conversation with consultant neuroscientist and researcher Oscar Hutton. Oscar is also part of the Greater Human community, with whom in 2022 he explored (and made sense of) the neuroscience research designed to answer the question “Does listening to your body help you become more empathetic?”. Part of the findings from this research paint a picture that challenge our understanding around how we understand others and how we build empathy as human beings.
This is an important listen.

0.00 Introduction

4.04 Introducing Oscar and his research.

5.21 Let’s think about the concept of empathy.

10.56 Why do we need empathy? 

13.02 What evolutionary benefits has empathy brought us as human beings?

19.04 Where do we start with this, in terms of how we build empathy?

21.10 How does interoception help us to more empathetic? 

23.08 So this is literally raising our awareness of what’s going on inside?

26.42 Is this a part of what helps us identify what we’re feeling?  

28.12 So rather than trying to ignore what the body is telling us, we should all learn to identify how we’re feeling and then work with it?

29.00 How new is interoception as an area of study and what have you started to find during your research?

32.49 Where have you started to go with your findings?

35.49 So when we are around people who we are very close to, you’re saying that there is a good chance that we could be experiencing what they are experiencing if we raise our awareness to it. 

37.33 Is this suggesting that the more we know someone, the greater the likelihood is that our bodies will feel the same as a result of an external stimulus?

40.32 Is it possible for anyone to switch on interoception accuracy?

41.52 Is it also something that can get lost if you don’t keep using it?

42.34 So where is the connection between interoception and empathy?

45.48 So how can we can begin to start to use this awareness?

52.37 Considering the amount of time we all spend interacting with others on the screen, is there anything that could be built to help us in that environment with those social cues? 

55.06 Is there anything else related to teamwork that you are starting to draw connections on?

57.53 How can someone who might not have heard of interoception before today begin to work on this new super skill?

64.09 So what have you done in this area for yourself?

67.30 So if more people were aware of this, could we avoid those difficult encounters?

69.48 Is there more that you can share from your research?

79.09 What can we leave the listener with? 

 Social:
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LinkedIn             The Evolving Leader Podcast
Twitter               @Evolving_Leader
Youtube              Evolving Leader

 The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and Scott Allend

Send a message to The Evolving Leader team

After more than 5 years of hosting The Evolving Leader, Jean Gomes and Scott Allender are launching their new show The Mindset Economy in January 2026. The new show will explore how to live better, work smarter and be connected in a more uncertain world where machines can think. 

Available wherever you get your podcasts.

In this episode of the Evolving Leader podcast, co-hosts Scott Allender and Jean Gomes are joined by entrepreneur, venture capital investor and author William Kilmer. A product and innovation strategist at heart, William has spent his career working with hundreds of companies as a start-up leader, coach, investor and board member. He has been founder and CEO of several cybersecurity and data analytics companies, formed a wireless operator in the UK, and has served on the board of over twenty five technology companies and other organizations. He was previously the managing director of Intel Capital, a corporate venture capital fund where he managed worldwide investments and formed a targeted venture fund to invest in the Middle East and North Africa.

Transformative: Build a Game Changing Strategy, Retool Your Organisation and Innovate to Win

0.00 Introduction

3.10 Can you tell us a little about how you got to where you are today?

4.28 What attracted you into working in technology and leadership?

5.18 Can we talk about innovation and the challenge that it poses for many organisations? 

7.37 Some organisations may sometimes lose perspective on why they are innovating. Why might that be?

9.53 In many organisations, innovation sits on the periphery rather than being central to the core business. Is that what you’re seeing?

12.09 What’s the difference between innovation and transformation?

16.50 If you were sitting with a CEO who wasn’t successfully transforming their organisation, what high level advice would you give to that individual?

22.59 Can you tell us about the ‘confidence bubble’?

27.57 Why do you think primary business model innovation isn’t happening at the same level as the technological innovation?

31.03 When was the last time you witnessed a pitch where you thought, ‘yeah that idea could really be transformative’?

33.33 Are there any currently under represented emerging technologies that you think might come to the fore in the future?

37.42 How have you evolved as a leader?

42.17 What mindset shift is required for an individual who is prone to defending ideas as opposed to challenging them?

43.34 If we fast forward three years, what are the things that we should be looking at in terms of combining new technologies and business models in order to solve some of the big challenges facing organisations?

47.08 Is there anything else that we should ask you?

Social:
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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

Send a message to The Evolving Leader team

After more than 5 years of hosting The Evolving Leader, Jean Gomes and Scott Allender are launching their new show The Mindset Economy in January 2026. The new show will explore how to live better, work smarter and be connected in a more uncertain world where machines can think. 

Available wherever you get your podcasts.

In this episode of the Evolving Leader podcast, Jean and Scott hand the mic to Emma Sinclair who talks to cognitive neuroscientist Emily Clements. As part of her PhD at Kings College, London Emily is currently leading one of the world’s first studies into the neuroscience of entrepreneurship. She aims to uncover what might be different within entrepreneur’s brains and how we might develop our mindsets to become more entrepreneurial?

Sit back and listen to this fascinating conversation during which Emma and Emily explore a key foundation for tomorrow’s leaders, building mindsets to navigate uncertainty and improve their capacity for disruptive thinking. 

0.00 Introduction

2.47 Emily, could you please begin by introducing yourself and what you are currently working on?

5.53 What is disruptive thinking?

8.00 What brain mechanisms are coming in to play when we go against the grain? 

8.35 Could you give us a quick summary of what you mean when you refer to brain networks? 

11.26 So are we focussing in on networks when we refer to disruptive thinking?

12.58 How often are we using our multiple demand network?

14.31 What would you define as being a hard task?

17.08 What’s the flipside to this?

20.05 I’d love to understand more about self-referential thought. 

24.20 If you were in deep meditation, which network are you operating in?

26.14 What have these brain networks got to do with disruptive thinking, why are they important?

29.30 Is it true to say that highly creative individuals are actually changing how their brain is operating? Is it possible to make your brain more creative? 

32.02 How can we consciously build a mindset that enables us to be more creative?

39.52 How can we all be more disruptive?

44.49 How important is environment for us to recognise that we might be in the wrong state to address a particular problem solving task?

49.43 We’ve talked about the constant demand on people. Is this current demand for our attention meaning that it’s harder to stay in either mode?

54.09 What can leaders take away from this? 

Social:
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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.

Send a message to The Evolving Leader team

After more than 5 years of hosting The Evolving Leader, Jean Gomes and Scott Allender are launching their new show The Mindset Economy in January 2026. The new show will explore how to live better, work smarter and be connected in a more uncertain world where machines can think. 

Available wherever you get your podcasts.

In this episode of the Evolving Leader podcast, co-hosts Jean Gomes and Scott Allender talk to award winning science writer David Robson. David has previously worked as a features editor at New Scientist and as a senior journalist at the BBC as well as writing countless articles for The Guardian, the Psychologist and many others. Sit back and listen as our co-hosts explore David’s life and work

The Expectation Effect: How Your Mindset Can Transform Your Life

The Intelligence Trap: Revolutionise your Thinking and Make Wiser Decisions

0.00 Introduction

2.51 What gets you excited about your work? 

3.51 Your work spans many different scientific disciplines including neuroscience and psychology. How do you bring those two things together to understand how human beings operate?

5.04 Can you give us the pitch to your first book, The Intelligence Trap?

7.18 You have said that intelligent people are more susceptible to fake news and conspiracy theories. Can you elaborate on that? 

12.55 Is this problem getting worse?

14.31 Can we dig into a few of the mechanisms that are at work, such as over claiming and earnt dogmatism?

17.38 How do you build cognitive inoculation?

21.10 You’ve written that unconscious bias training may not be as straightforward and you present a more nuanced view about it. Could you talk to us a little about this?

23.56 Your second book is titled The Expectation Effect. Can you tell us what the expectation effect is and is not?

26.19 You have written how it’s possible to create different levels of change in your body for a long period of time that creates general conditions for good things to happen. Your research into the effect of the placebo is probably the most significant in this regard. Can you tell us a little more about that? 

30.01 You also talk about the opposite which is the nocebo. Tell us about this.

33.40 The research by Alia Crum on fitness and eating is exciting in terms of giving us practical potential solutions for rethinking our mindset around these things.  

39.03 You list some practical things that the reader can do to harness the expectation effect. Could you give us some examples of things that our listeners could start doing right now?

42.35 There are some potent takeaways around the expectation effect and its influence on longevity. Could you talk us through what you’ve learnt there?

46.45 What else should we be asking you?

51.29 What are you working on now?

Social:
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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 Phi

Send a message to The Evolving Leader team

After more than 5 years of hosting The Evolving Leader, Jean Gomes and Scott Allender are launching their new show The Mindset Economy in January 2026. The new show will explore how to live better, work smarter and be connected in a more uncertain world where machines can think. 

Available wherever you get your podcasts.

In this special 100th episode of the Evolving Leader podcast, co-hosts Scott Allender and Emma Sinclair talk to one of our usual co-hosts on the podcast, Jean Gomes. As many listeners will know, Jean is a leadership expert, trusted advisor to CEOs and senior leaders, and New York Times bestselling author. During this conversation, Jean talks about his new book ‘Leading in a Non-Linear World, Building Wellbeing, Strategic, and Innovation Mindsets for the Future’.

 Leading in a Non-Linear World

 0.00 Introduction

2.48 Why did you write ‘Leading In A Non-Linear World’? 

6.16 Why is this important now?

8.54 We often hear that we should simplify things, but you’re saying that we should meet complexity with complexity. Can you tell us more about that?

11.10 Can you give us some examples of the kinds of mindsets that you’re talking about building?

14.48 When writing about mindset, you refer to the interplay between feeling, thinking and seeing grounded in own self-awareness. This feels like something that is accessible to everyone. How did that idea start to form for you?

22.18 When we talk about self-awareness or mindset, nobody thinks that they’re not self-aware.  Is it easier for some people to be more connected to what’s going on in their body and mind, and for those people who find it harder, how can they start to build these skills? 

29.34 Can you tell us about your sixteen months of experimentation? What did you actually do during that time?

35.20 Understanding and knowing how to manage our internal physical resources is something that is often bypassed by leaders. How could you encourage them to make a shift in how they approach their wellbeing?  

40.11 Now that we’ve done a deep dive into the body, could you delve deeper into the emotional centre?

46.14 You refer to negative uncomfortable emotions, and how some people may externalise that rather than getting curious about why they might be feeling this way. How could they get practically curious while in the middle of a very uncomfortable feeling?

52.36 So the idea of feelings and emotions as a means of accessing mindset may be route that a lot of people may not have thought about before. How have you taken that and built it into this interconnection between thinking and seeing as well? How do they all interact together in your definition?

57.04 What mindsets can we build for our future? 

Social:
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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.

Send a message to The Evolving Leader team

After more than 5 years of hosting The Evolving Leader, Jean Gomes and Scott Allender are launching their new show The Mindset Economy in January 2026. The new show will explore how to live better, work smarter and be connected in a more uncertain world where machines can think. 

Available wherever you get your podcasts.