Leadership Lab

Leadership Excellence & Learning to Learn

Building leadership capability and innovative learning solutions for the changing world of work

Lab Mission

Hult’s Leadership Impact Lab will help organizations cultivate the leadership excellence they need to navigate the challenges of a rapidly changing world of work.

The Leadership lab serves as a hub for the constant evolution of learning tools and methods, ensuring their effectiveness and relevance in addressing real-world organizational challenges.

Our highly practical research aims to address:

  • Educational content: Researching topical business issues to ensure classroom content is current and relevant
  • Content delivery: Taking expertise and best practice in the classroom and using research to build on it
  • Impact and organizational context: Exploring and measuring how learning and leadership are applied in the workplace

Lab Impact

The Leadership Impact Lab conducts highly practical research that aims to equip individuals and organisations with the latest thinking around topical workplace issues. The lab focuses on building leadership capabilities, with a particular emphasis on the use of innovative tools and techniques to implement learning.

The lab's work builds on Hult's renowned strengths in leadership, people management, and organizational change, combined with our history of developing innovative diagnostic tools that help managers and teams understand their current state, identify areas for improvement, and develop plans to reach desired goals.

Building on previous successes—such as the in-depth Leadership Experience based on cardio-neuroscience about heart rate learning effectiveness zones, the BoatShare simulation of an Uber-like platform for boat-sharing marketing decisions, and the Mosaic© board game for sensitive gender balance and diversity issues—we will work to develop a broad range of management tools. These diverse methods draw from fields like organizational psychology, leadership theory, and design thinking and include psychometrics, simulations, board games, diagnostic tests, self-evaluations, and strategy frameworks.

Lab Director

Meet Carina Paine-Schofield, PhD

Carina is the director of Hult’s Leadership Impact Lab. She is a highly experienced researcher whose research interests are in the areas of psychology (organizational, educational, social, and developmental) and technology (AI and the effective use of technology in enhancing learning and teaching).

Carina's first degree was in Applied Psychology and Computing. Following this, she gained a postgraduate diploma in Psychology and a PhD in Psychology from The Open University. She is a member of the British Psychological Society.

The nature of Carina's research experience is interdisciplinary in terms of its strong link between theoretical and applied social science research in a number of settings. She has presented at various national and international conferences in the disciplines of both psychology and computing and has also presented her research as an invited speaker on several occasions to practitioners and policymakers. She has published papers in the areas of psychology, education, computing, and online research.

Carina conducted research into the global multi-generation workforce for over a decade. This research resulted in numerous authored articles (academic and practitioner); workshops and conference presentations and copious press coverage (print, radio, and television). Her current research focuses on exploring the psychological challenges and experiences of working parents from an organizational perspective and investigating the impact of technology on the learning landscape.

Article

How HR can better support working dads

Paine-Schofield, C.

Lab Visiting Fellows

Dr. Eve Poole, OBE

Dr Eve Poole OBE is a Visiting Fellow of the Leadership Lab and serves on the Hult EF Global Advisory Council. She is Executive Chair of the Woodard Corporation. She has a BA from Durham, an MBA from Edinburgh, and a PhD from Cambridge. She has written several books, including Robot Souls and Leadersmithing which are the subject of popular TEDx talks. For 15 years she taught Leadership at Ashridge, after working for the Church Commissioners and for Deloitte Consulting, where she specialised in change management for the Financial Services sector.

She has been Interim CEO for the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland and the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Third Church Estates Commissioner for England, and the first female Chairman of Gordonstoun. In 2023 she was awarded an OBE for services to education and gender equality.

René Carayol, MBE

René is an inspirational speaker, who specialises in leadership, inclusion and cultural transformation. Over the years he has advised leaders such as Mikhail Gorbachev and Tony Blair, as well as some of the world’s top CEOs. Much of his recent work focuses on Diversity and Inclusion and Inclusive Leadership. As an international speaker, René speaks with the authority and confidence of the expert and leader who has seen and experienced it all before.

René draws much from his own unique lived experiences from being in the boardroom of the largest international companies, from Marks and Spencer and Pepsi, to IPC Media and Barclays.

Lab Areas of Focus

Leading people

Within this focus area, we address themes of:

  • Changing leadership: Including algorithmic, ethical, and inclusive leadership as well as pathways to leadership.
  • Talent: Including attrition, retention, talent, employee experience, and value creation.
  • Wellbeing: Including wellbeing metrics, individual and collective wellbeing.

Report

Reconnecting at Work: The dark side and the sunny side

Hult International Business School

Lubitsh, G., Paine Schofield, C.

(2023)

Report

Shades of Grey: An exploratory study of engagement in work teams

Hult International Business School

Armstrong, A., Oliver, S., Wilkinson, S.

(2018)

Book

A sense of belonging at work: A guide to improving wellbeing and performance

Routledge

Waller, L.

(2021)

Article

Working dads need more support

HR Magazine

Paine Schofield, C.

(2022)

Learning to Learn

Within this focus area, we address themes of:

  • Technology in learning and teaching: Including artificial intelligence (AI) and augmented learning, personalized learning and pedagogy, and hybrid and virtual learning.
  • Learner mindset and process: Including learning styles and strategies, curiosity, and insights from neuroscience and psychology.
  • Pedagogical innovations and impact: Including experiential learning, EdTech, learning tools, and ROI.

Article

The orchestrator—A new role for L&D

Training Journal

Oliver, S.

(2022)

Report

Mindset Matters: Why growth mindset is key to organizational success

Hult International Business School

Page, N., Sullivan, T., Anthony, R.

(2019)

Article

Enable learners to become confident digital explorers

Times Higher Education

Cooray, M., Duus, R.

(2022)

Report

From the classroom to the workplace with "Into Practice"

Hult International Business School

Paine Schofield, C., Brown, G., Holton, V., Hall, C.

(2019)

Report

Learning Health Index

Hult International Business School, EdCast

Oliver, S., Lansdell-Zandvoort, I., Slinkard, S.

(2022)

Adaptive organizations

Within this focus area, we address themes of:

  • Humanocracy: Including organizational agility, leadership in humanocratic organizations, and human-centric culture and innovation.

  • Organizational development: Including change management, organizational culture, and self-efficacy.
  • Augmented learning: Including organizational learning, personalized learning, play and gaming, and leadership capabilities.

Report

Rethinking Leadership for The Hybrid World of Work

Hult International Business School

Bayntun-Lees, D., Cross, A.

(2022)

Book

Agile Leadership for Turbulent Times: Integrating Your Ego, Eco, and Intuitive Intelligence

Routledge

Oliver, S., Hölscher, F., Williams, C.

(2020)

Report

The do’s and don’ts of employee activism

Hult International Business School

Reitz, M., Higgings, J., Day-Duro, E.

(2021)

Report

Ego, Eco, and Intuitive leadership—a new logic for disruptive times

Hult International Business School

Oliver, S., Fleming, K., Hölscher, F., Holton, V,

(2019)

Book

Speak Up: Say What Needs to Be Said and Hear What Needs to Be Heard

FT Publishing

Reitz, M., Higgings, J.

(2020)

Collaborate with Hult Impact Labs

Want to find out more about any of our Impact Labs? Interested in collaborating on a project? Get in touch and let's talk research.

Meet the Team