I’m Writing a Book About Leadership for People Who Don’t Fit the Mold

Over the past months, I’ve been working on something that feels both very personal and completely aligned with everything I talk about online. I’m writing a book called Lead Anyway: 10 Rules for Leading When You Break the Mold, and it’s a leadership book for people who don’t naturally fit the corporate mold, who don’t see themselves reflected in the traditional leadership stereotype, and who are tired of feeling like they have to reshape themselves just to belong.

This book is for the introverts, the neurodivergent professionals, the deep thinkers, the ones who have been told they are too quiet, too intense, too sensitive, or just not “executive” enough. It’s for people who learned early on that fitting in felt safer than standing out, and who became very good at adjusting their tone, their energy, or their personality to make other people comfortable.

For a long time, I thought leadership meant being more polished, more charismatic, more relaxed in rooms than I naturally am. I tried to smooth out the sharp edges, to speak a little differently, to show up in a way that looked more like the leaders I saw around me. It worked in the sense that my career progressed. But it never really felt like me. And the more I leaned into that version, the more draining it became.

So this book is about another way of leading.

It’s about building authority without performing. About setting boundaries and calling that culture. About asking better questions instead of having all the answers. About burnout, grief, impostor syndrome, masking, and all the things we are rarely invited to talk about in corporate spaces. It’s about trusting your voice even when it’s quieter, different, or less conventional than what we have been taught leadership should sound like.

I’m incredibly excited to share that the book is scheduled to come out next fall, and that I’ve signed with a publisher who genuinely understands what this book is trying to do. That still feels slightly unreal to say out loud.

Until then, I’ll keep sharing parts of the process, the thinking, and the messy middle along the way.

If you’ve ever felt like you had to change who you are in order to lead, this book is for you.