Podcast
Leading with Queer Integrity
Hosted by 🏳️🌈 Darren Stehle · EN
Leadership insights and guidance for LGBTQ+ change-makers who want to lead with clarity, conviction, and compassion by aligning their values, voice, and vision to create ethical, transformative impact.
darrenstehle.substack.com
darrenstehle.substack.com
15episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
How Do Your Key Notions of Worth Affect Your Leadership?
Dec 1400:14:32Tap to summarizeYour values are not just words—they’re the compass that guides every decision, action, and connection. When your beliefs are deeply understood and consistently expressed, you show up with unwavering clarity, confidence, and integrity.KNOW is an acronym for Key Notions of Worth. Here’s what they mean in the context of queer integrity. K – KeyIdentify the core values and beliefs that are essential to who you are—the ones that must be honoured if you’re to live and lead with integrity.N – NotionsBring conscious awareness to the principles and perceptions you hold about yourself, others, and the world—especially those that operate below the surface.O – OfRecognize that values without action are just ideas. The word ‘of’ reminds us that values live in relation to action, experience, and purpose.W – WorthDefine what truly matters—to you and for the greater good. Worth is not just what you believe in; it’s what you’re willing to stand up for, consistently and courageously.Your personal code of conduct is your ethical GPS directing how you lead, communicate, and connect. When you KNOW what you stand for, self-doubt fades, and the impact of your leadership grows exponentially.Thanks for reading The Queer Integrity Dispatch! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.So…What Do You Stand For?There’s a saying I love: “If you don’t know what you stand for, you won’t have a leg to stand on.”And one of the oldest teachings from the Tao Te Ching reminds us:“The journey of a thousand miles begins beneath your feet.”Both sayings point to the same truth: to take meaningful steps forward, you first need to know where you stand.How does knowing where you stand affect your leadership?To lead with queer integrity, you must know your values, what is ethical to you, what your values are, and how you show up in the world as someone who embodies what they stand for—truthfully, consistently, and with courage. Using another word: integrity.Knowing where you stand on important issues is like knowing your exact location on a map—only then can you take a meaningful step in the direction of your values. STANDPOINT—What Do You Stand For?If you haven’t already watched today’s video, go do that now.* In one to three sentences, describe what you stand for—what you believe to be true, meaningful, and right.* Why does this matter so deeply to you? What makes it meaningful in your life or leadership?* How do you know what you believe to be true?* Consider: What shaped this belief—experience, environment, or education?* Then ask, “How do I know if this is true?” Embracing uncertainty can deepen your clarity and strengthen your integrity.* What do you do consistently that reflects your commitment to this belief or value?* How can your actions inspire others to follow you, not because they agree, but because they trust you?A Final Question from the MarginsAfter completing this exercise, review your responses. Then consider:What part of your queerness do you want to recognize as something that nourishes your sense of worth, anchors your values, and reminds you who you are?Tomorrow, you’ll discover the third principle of queer integrity, The Way You THINK.Want to explore these principles with more clarity, depth, and guidance? Learn more about working with me one-on-one and request a conversation here: https://www.darrenstehle.com/coaching 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
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If Well-Being Isn't the Foundation of Your Leadership, You'll Never Make a Difference
Dec 1300:13:44Tap to summarizeFEEL is my leadership coaching principle for Freedom, Energy, Enthusiasm, and Love. Each of these words speak to the nuance of well-being and how that affects your leadership. F – FreedomCreate inner and outer environments that support emotional ease and personal sovereignty—so you’re not reacting to life but responding with intention.E – EnergyFuel your body and mind with practices that support vitality, stamina, and clear-headedness—the essentials for showing up fully each day.E – EnthusiasmAnchor into the emotional states that uplift and motivate you. Enthusiasm isn’t a bonus—it’s a leadership advantage rooted in emotional self-mastery.L – LoveLead from a place of care—for yourself, your mission, and others. Love is what keeps your vision human, your actions ethical, and your leadership resilient.If you don’t FEEL well, you can’t LEAD well—and you won’t have the capacity to CARE enough to make a difference. Well-being isn’t optional. It’s the ground everything else stands on.Thanks for reading The Queer Integrity Dispatch! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.Cultivating Self-Mastery Through CAREAs a queer leader, your emotional well-being is foundational to your leadership.Here’s what I believe:You can’t care for others if you don’t first care about yourself. You can’t make a meaningful, influential, or transformative difference in the world if you are ignoring your physical and emotional health and well-being.The FEEL principle emphasizes the importance of self-awareness and self-care. And by using my CARE framework—Caring, Attention, Recognition, Enthusiasm—you can assess and enhance your emotional state to lead with integrity.PRACTICE—What you’re being asked to do.If you haven’t already watched today’s video, go do that now. Then, reflect on each aspect of the CARE framework below. Answer the questions honestly, considering your current experiences and feelings. Document your responses to track your growth throughout this program.C – CaringTending to your physical, mental, and emotional health.* How do you prioritize your physical health, nutrition, and rest?* What practices do you have in place for your mental and emotional well-being?* What small change can you implement today to enhance your self-care routine?A – AttentionBeing consciously aware of your thoughts, emotions, and energy levels.* What thoughts or emotions frequently occupy your mind?* How do these internal states influence your behaviour and interactions?* What strategies can you employ to maintain focus and emotional balance?R – RecognitionAcknowledging your own worth and seeing the humanity in others.* How do you perceive your own value and contributions?* In what ways do you recognize and appreciate the strengths of others?* How does recognizing shared humanity impact your leadership approach?E – EnthusiasmConnecting your energy and emotions to your environment and actions.* What activities or environments energize you?* How do you maintain motivation during challenging times?* What steps can you take to cultivate enthusiasm in your daily life?A Final Question from the MarginsAfter completing this exercise, review your responses. Then consider:What part of your queerness do you want to honour—as something that nourishes your well-being, shapes how you feel, and reminds you of your truth? And how does that shape how you lead?What better way to practice the FEEL principle than to take rest once you’ve completed today’s lesson. Tomorrow, you will learn about the second principle of queer integrity, ‘What You KNOW.’ 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
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How to Take an Honest Snapshot of Your Current Leadership Qualities
Dec 1200:16:12Tap to summarizeBefore we begin our journey together, I want to invite you to consider something that often gets overlooked in leadership spaces:Self-honesty.This is not to suggest that you need to fix or critique yourself, rather, I invite you to witness where you are right now as impartially and honestly as possible. Think of this as taking a picture—a snapshot of your current leadership experience. Not a glam shot, but an honest reflection of your inner world: your energy, clarity, voice, values, vision, and leadership ‘quality.’ Because at the end of this program, you’ll take another picture.That’s when the transformation will be more visible—not just in what you know, but in how you feel and express yourself, and in how you feel about the clarity and direction of your leadership.The best way to assess your progress is to know where you started.You are an explorer of your own domain, so get comfortable, get curious, suspend self-criticism, and allow yourself to have fun throughout the process.Thanks for reading The Queer Integrity Dispatch! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.Watch Today’s VideoI provide extra detail and guidance on how to get the most out of today’s self-reflection questions.Take a snapshot of your personal landscape.I can’t tell you what you need to do, but I can guide you to consider your own pathway to lead with greater clarity, conviction, openness, and integrity resulting in more influence and impact for those you support.There’s no single formula for leadership—but there is a path—a human-hearted one rooted in six interwoven principles that I use in my coaching practice to support queer leaders in their personal and leadership evolution.When these principles align, your leadership becomes not only effective — but courageous, inspiring, and unmistakably yours.Six Questions to Assess How You Lead with Integrity.Answer these questions in a notebook, a Google Doc, or a journaling app. What matters is that you answer for you, not for me or anyone else.This is not a test. There are no right answers. This is about seeing yourself with honesty and compassion so you can grow from a place of truth—not performance or perfection.This is where your transformation begins. Let yourself be seen—even if it’s just by you.FEELYou can’t lead well if you don’t feel well.* How are you really doing—emotionally, mentally, and physically—and how is that affecting how you show up as a leader?KNOWYour values and beliefs are your compass. You need to know what you stand for.* What values do you rely on when you’re unsure how to respond, act, or decide? Are those values immediately clear—or more like a feeling you can’t quite name?THINKEthical clarity is cultivated through both emotional intelligence and reason.* When you’re facing tough decisions or conflicting demands, how do you make sense of what’s ethical, right, or worth your time and energy?VOICEYour unique expression is how you inspire others and share your truth for clear communication.* Where do you feel most heard, and where do you still hold back? What keeps your voice from being fully expressed and understood?DREAMWithout a compelling vision and direction, your leadership loses momentum.* What’s your mission or vision that pulls you forward? What social change or transformation do you most want to experience in the world?LEADTrue leadership is the natural integration of all these parts into visible, impactful action.* When you picture yourself leading with clarity, confidence, and integrity, what feels like it’s missing right now—and what feels aligned and powerful?Real Leaders Ask for Guidance and SupportI’m passionate about this program and how fully committing to answering the questions with curiosity and vulnerability will reward you with deep insights into how you—and what you can do with those learnings.With any learning experience, if something I said wasn’t clear, or if you feel stuck answering a question, ask for help right away. Drop me a note in the comments or DM me if it’s too personal. Clarity and alignment are within your reach—all you need to do is ask. Up next in this series on Leading with Queer Integrity: How your leadership suffers or thrives in relation to how you well you FEEL.Want to explore these principles with more clarity, depth, and guidance? Learn more about working with me one-on-one and request a conversation here: https://www.darrenstehle.com/coaching 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
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Do You Have the Conviction and Influence to Make a Difference as a Queer or Trans Leader?
Dec 1000:09:39Tap to summarizeAn invitation to participate in a free ‘end-of-year’ 8-day coaching program: Empower Your Leadership with Queer Integrity.This program (which I will publish here on my Substack) asks you to show up every day for just over a week to watch a short video to describe the process and then answer some self-reflection questions. Yes, I know, that’s a big commitment—but it’s intentional. An intensive period of focused attention creates a behavioural and emotional disruption that leads to meaningful change in a very short period of time.I’ve done these kinds of intensives many times myself. Some days you don’t feel like doing the work, and that’s exactly when you should and why this process works. Concentrated attention keeps you in the mindset of learning, reflecting, and evolving. Think back to the focus you maintained before an exam or the way you poured yourself into a final essay for school or university—and who you became afterward. That’s what a short, concentrated program does: it expands your clarity and strengthens your capacities.This program will challenge you to think, feel, and reconnect with what matters most: who you are, how you lead, and how to show up with integrity as you create change in the world. I’ve created this unique program by weaving together queer identity, personal responsibility, and human-hearted leadership in a way that supports the difference you want to make.This work is not about the empty buzzwords of “influence” and “impact.” It’s about cultivating the inner clarity and conviction that makes your influence real—grounded in values, guided by integrity, and expressed through the way you show up. All that combined translates into the potential for constructive and positive impact.I’ll be available to support you as you work through the program. If you have questions, struggles, or moments of uncertainty, write me a comment or DM me for support.If you partake fully, you will see a genuine shift by the end of the eight days—in your focus, leadership, sense of direction, and connection to what matters most.I hope you decide to take part, be curious, and enjoy the journey. I’m looking forward to seeing the changes that unfold for you. The first lesson drops in a couple of days on Friday, December 12.If you want to work through these ideas in real time, subscribe to take part in comments and chat. Limiting interaction to subscribers helps keep this space respectful and centred on thoughtful leadership. And by the way, my Substack is completely free.Thanks for reading The Queer Integrity Dispatch! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. 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
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When You Feel Off Your Game: How Do You Make Sense of Yourself Before You Lead Others?
Dec 600:18:57Tap to summarizeI’ve been thinking about the tension between stillness and disruption…In today’s video, I talk about those rare moments when life feels like the near-perfect reflection of what’s above perfectly still water—versus the far more common days when everything feels muddled, confused, or upset. I reference the photograph I took of the Lachine Canal in Montréal this summer (above) because of how calm, still, and transparent the water is. That kind of clarity is what I’m always aiming for—equanimity, peace of mind, the ability to really see what’s happening and respond in a meaningful, thoughtful way using the emotions and feelings I want to bring to solving a problem. But right now, that’s not where I am.I’ve been feeling off my game and uncertain about where to go next. The Tao Te Ching reminds us that,A way can be a guide, but not a fixed path;names can be given. but not permanent labels.The opening two lines of the Tao speak to the intersection between morality and ethics—not right/wrong binaries, but the way we try to make sense of what’s happening in the world, and the way ethical leaders try to show up with personal responsibility for the collective good. Certainty and clarity feel like rare occurences these days. I’m noticing this lack in myself, and I’m noticing it in others—anger, frustration, anxiety, and shutting down are the norm. I have so much to say that I don’t know what to say.Instead of creating, I’m second-guessing my ideas, my unfinished articles, my book on queer integrity that stalled. I wondered if I was trying to build the whole building instead of starting with one floor and moving from there. Even the way I write has felt like an obstacle—speech-to-text that doesn’t feel right, typing that creates gibberish, spell-check underlines that ripple across the water and distort the reflection of what I’m trying to say. I end up fixating on the obstacle instead of the clarity.Thanks for reading The Queer Integrity Dispatch! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.And then there’s how I show up on video.A friend said I can seem polished, prepared, put-together—great lighting, great sound—but where’s the real Darren? The truth is I’ve struggled with anger and rage for most of my life. It’s probably why I got into coaching and why I turn to the Tao Te Ching for some sense of self-mastery. When the orange menace was reelected in November 2024, I was scared and furious. I’ve been watching the unfairness, polarization, injustice, inhumanity, and disrespect intensify, and it’s been overwhelming. I admire people who show up as advocates and activists without fear, but I also think we need vulnerability and a way forward.Rage for the sake of rage is just shouting or virtue signalling trying to prove we’re on the “right” side of justice.A way can be a guide but not a fixed path. That means a just way can’t be an ideology or dogma. And that’s what I’m reacting against—everything that people are doing or saying that’s inflexible, inhumane, and devoid of compassion or care. I find myself needing to step back so that I can get grounded, see to the depths, and then take next steps with a clear view forward. Sometimes we need to be vague before we can get specific. Sometimes we need to stir the pot before it can settle. Sometimes saying less lets us understand more.There doesn’t always have to be a neat and tidy conclusion or solution... If what I’ve said speaks to where you are—if you’re struggling to find clarity and you’re stuck on the obstacles that stop you in your tracks—reach out. Message me. Let’s have a conversation and figure out how you can get to that place where the water is still enough that you can see your next steps, and create the way that can be your guide, but not a fixed path. 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
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