This morning I printed my manuscript for the first time.

150 pages. Just over 35,000 words. I’ve never written anything close to this in a single document, and holding it in my hands this morning produced a kind of joy I wasn’t quite prepared for.

But that’s not what I want to talk about.

It took four takes to finally complete today’s video. The previous three weren’t quite right, and the last one was genuinely good until I got tongue-twisted at the end and didn’t say what I meant to say.

Which is, as it happens, exactly the point.

My book is not perfect. No book is. No leadership model is. If you believe there is a definitive leadership book that answers every question, accounts for every situation, and never needs revisiting, I’m not sorry to tell you: you are kidding yourself.

There is no definitive leadership book because leadership is not a fixed destination.

There is always a new environment, a new ethics, a new crisis, a new way of thinking. Everything influences how we show up and act. A book that claims to have the final word would never be finished being written.

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What matters is not perfection. What matters is practice.

As queer and trans people, we have had a great deal of practice in self-discovery, whether we have fully embraced that, come out, and shown up visibly in spaces that haven’t made room for us. Showing up in spaces that weren’t built to include you takes courage, which, like everything else worth developing, is built through practice, not through getting it right the first time.

My book, Queering the Way: Navigating Leadership Ethics from the Margins, is structured around six principles that address how we lead most effectively — FEEL, KNOW, THINK, VOICE, DREAM, LEAD. Those principles are not a definitive checklist to complete. Instead, they are a living practice to return to when you hit a roadblock, when someone questions your leadership, or when you realize, in the middle of a conversation, that this is a learning moment.

Life is a series of learning moments.

How well we receive such moments, with flexibility, humility, and the willingness to practice anew rather than simply repeat, is what determines whether we transform or stay stuck.

Queer and trans people understand transformation in a way that most don’t. That understanding is precisely what this book aims to develop in you, as a leader, change-maker, or social entrepreneur so that you can show up most influentially in the world. I don’t mean in an algorithmic, social-media sense. Rather, in the sense of how well you connect with others, how well you can understand and feel what the other person is experiencing, and how effectively you build bridges — even when the other person doesn’t yet see you as their equal.

That is the hard work we are up against.

We cannot deny it or shy from it. Not all of us do it publicly. Some of us lead from behind the scenes, or by supporting those who are more visible. All of your work matters in representing queer and trans experience as part of the natural human fabric.

The book publishes on Wednesday, June 4th, 2026.

If you’d like to follow along before it launches, you can sign up here:

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit darrenstehle.substack.com