Queering the Way: Navigating Leadership Ethics from the Margins
What if your queerness is the most important leadership asset you have?
Queering the Way: Navigating Leadership Ethics from the Margins is a book about what becomes possible when queer and trans leaders stop leading despite their identity and start leading from it.
"Your experience of living outside the heteronormative status quo is not a liability. It is a form of ethical intelligence."
This is not a book for everyone.
If you are looking for a new leadership system to increase your impact, or a set of strategies to implement next quarter, this is not that book, and I would rather tell you now than disappoint you later.
If, however, you are a thoughtful, curious person who has been seriously contemplating what it means to lead with integrity in a world whose default social order was not built to include you — if you are done compromising and ready to lead from the full truth of who you are — then this book was written with you in mind.
"You cannot lead well if you don't feel well. Not sustainably. Not with integrity. Not in a way that doesn't cost you more than it gives."
Queering the Way draws on the wisdom of the Tao Te Ching, queer theory, and the realities of leading ethically in a world that is, at this particular moment in history, making that increasingly difficult. It is grounded in six principles — FEEL, KNOW, THINK, VOICE, DREAM, LEAD — not as steps to follow, but as practices to embody and make your own.
"Queering the way is a capacity to see from the margins, to observe the structures that others take for granted, and to build an ethics without a fixed blueprint."
What Readers Are Saying
"A coherent and well-grounded argument that queer experience is not incidental to ethical leadership but foundational to it. The chapter on voice is worth the price of the book on its own. Stehle draws the line between the validity of a feeling and the usefulness of leading from it clearly, and without moralizing about it."
— Wilbur Turner, queer advocate and community organizer, three decades in the field Full review on Amazon →
"It's hard to be queer in the United States right now, and it's even harder to lead queer organizations composed of people who are scared, frustrated, and pushed to the limits of their emotional and mental well-being. That tension sits at the heart of this book, and it's what makes this feel less like a leadership manual and more like a conversation with someone who genuinely understands the weight you're carrying. For queer leaders navigating this moment, Queering the Way isn't just a useful read. It might be a necessary one."
— Michelle Simmons, Founder, Queer Lit Collective
"Navigating life from the margins can cultivate the very qualities leadership needs most: self-awareness, courage, resilience, humility, and the willingness to question what others accept without thought. This is ultimately a book about human leadership — about finding your voice, standing in your truth, and leading from a place of integrity rather than conformity."
— Mark J. Silverman, Executive Coach, markjsilverman.com
"Honest, vulnerable, and timely. Queering the Way invites readers to embrace authenticity, cultivate self-awareness, and lead from a place of compassion rather than fear."
— Shaun Proulx, Writer and Broadcaster, shaunproulx.ca
Queering the Way is available to download now
You can purchase the book directly from me for $14.99 CAD on Gumroad, which includes both the EPUB and PDF formats.
Download from other online booksellers.
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