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.
Lab Visiting Fellows
Dr. Eve Poole, OBE
Dr Eve Poole OBE Chairs the Woodard Corporation. Previously, she was Interim CEO of the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland (2023-2024), Interim CEO of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (2022), Third Church Estates Commissioner (2018-2021), and Chairman of the Board of Governors at Gordonstoun (2015-2021). She also taught Leadership at Ashridge Business School, following earlier careers at the Church Commissioners and Deloitte Consulting.
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 was Highly Commended in the 2018 Business Book Awards
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.
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.
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.