Leading with Queer Integrity

🏳️‍🌈 Darren Stehle

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

  1. The Most Dangerous Leader Is the One Who Has Never Questioned Their Own Beliefs

    5 hr ago

    The Most Dangerous Leader Is the One Who Has Never Questioned Their Own Beliefs

    We live in a moment when knowing — in the sense of facts, of truth, of what can actually be trusted — has never felt more precarious. Information is everywhere. So is its opposite. The challenge isn’t access to knowledge. It’s discernment: being able to separate what is actually true from what has been distorted, weaponised, or simply repeated so often it feels true. But that’s the external version of the problem. The KNOW principle in my book, Queering the Way: Navigating Leadership Ethics from the Margins, is about something more interior. KNOW is an acronym: Key Notions Of Worth. Your values, your beliefs, your roles in life — the things that ground who you are as a leader so that others can trust you. Not because you project certainty, but because you are a person of known character, and because you have an ethical code of conduct that others can read, rely on, and be inspired by. The question at the heart of this principle is deceptively simple: What do you know for certain? And have you ever had a moment where everything you thought to be true — you questioned? There’s a chapter in the KNOW section called “The Candle and the Courtyard.” It’s about something that happened when I was sixteen. I was raised Catholic. Devout, even — altar boy, usher, lector. I was seriously considering the priesthood. Far be it for a gay man not to consider becoming a priest… but I digress. At sixteen, I was attending my sixth and final COR retreat — Christ and Others Retreat. I was one of the support volunteers, not in the front with the participants. At the time, I was quietly coming to terms with being gay — convincing myself I might be bisexual, the way you do when you’re not quite ready to say the thing out loud. I was never bisexual. In the middle of that weekend, I did what you were supposed to do when you were having a crisis of faith. I reached out to the people in charge and asked for help. That’s not what I got. I was told, essentially, to stop asking questions. You’re here to serve God. You’re here to serve the people experiencing this weekend. If you can’t do that, leave. No compassion. No understanding. No attempt to meet me where I was. That is not leadership. I don’t want to give away what happened next — there’s a moment in that chapter I’m keeping for the book. But I want to share what I wrote about it: “What I did not know then, and could not have articulated at sixteen, was that I had just made my first consciously ethical decision. Not a moral one in the religious sense — not a calculation about right and wrong as the Church defined those terms — but an ethical one in the deepest sense: a decision about who I was and what I was willing to accept as true about myself and about the institutions that claimed authority over my life. The Church had been telling me, without quite saying it, that there was something wrong with me. That who I was, and who I was only beginning to understand myself to be, was incompatible with belonging.” That theme — belonging, dignity, and the right of every person to occupy space as fully themselves — runs throughout the book. Human-hearted leadership doesn’t require us to agree with everyone or like everyone. It does require us to know when our values are compromising someone else’s freedom to exist. And none of us has the right to decide who belongs and who doesn’t. So here’s what I’d invite you to contemplate today: * What do you know to be true? Where did you learn your beliefs? * Who taught you your values? * Have you ever stepped back to ask, why is this value important to me and is it still serving me as a leader? Queering the Way: Navigating Leadership Ethics from the Margins launches Thursday, June 4th. Pre-order on Amazon or purchase from me directly. Thanks for reading Queering The Way! 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

    6 min
  2. My Book Pre-order Is Live — and a Word About Voice

    26 May

    My Book Pre-order Is Live — and a Word About Voice

    Scooby and I took a break in the shade along the Lachine Canal today and I recorded this short video to share some news and a thought. Queering the Way: Navigating Leadership Ethics from the Margins is now available for pre-order on Amazon, ahead of its June 4th release. It is a personal book. A personal philosophy of queer leadership rooted in the Tao Te Ching — built around how you feel, what you know, how you think, how you use your voice, what you dream, and how you lead. It’s for the change-makers who are looking for someone with whom they can connect and say: I get this. This is the way I haven’t considered for how I can lead from my convictions with full integrity. I was editing the VOICE principle when I recorded this, and I want to say something about what voice actually means in this context. Not just how you speak or communicate, but the different ways in which you do that, and most importantly, how your message is understood by others so that you have genuine influence. Not power over, rather the kind of conviction that others feel and want to follow. Audre Lorde wrote: “I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood.” Sometimes we have to be disruptive. Sometimes we have to ruffle feathers. That doesn’t mean we have to be disrespectful, though it may feel that way to some people. When you call out the truth for what it is and force people to see a perspective they’re not quite aware of — the things they are standing for that are harming others — you are standing up for the dignity of everyone. That is the essence of what this book is about. June 4th. Nine days away. 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

    3 min
  3. Why My Book Is Not Perfect — And Why That Matters

    13 May

    Why My Book Is Not Perfect — And Why That Matters

    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. Thanks for reading Queering The Way! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. 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

    7 min
  4. I Just Finished Writing My Book!

    6 May

    I Just Finished Writing My Book!

    The book is finished. Queering the Way: A Leadership Ethics from the Margins — the one I started, stopped, abandoned, restarted, and then finally refused to put down — is done. I could publish it today, and I could hand it to you and say, “Read this.” I recorded a short video to share this moment, because some things are better said out loud than written down. Watch it above, or keep reading if you prefer words on a page. I’m at a pivot point I haven’t been at before: moving from ideation, creation, and editing to actually getting this into the hands of people who need to read it. Over the next few weeks I’ll be sharing more about what the book is, who it’s for, and what you can expect. My plan is to have it available for public sale by the end of May or the very beginning of June. In the meantime, if you’re interested — if you want early access, a special preview, or an advance reading copy at an almost-giveaway price — let me know. Leave a comment, or send me a message with your email address. I’ll be putting together an exclusive email update for everyone who wants to follow the journey to launch. This book is about using your queerness to empower your leadership, to make a real difference, and to look at what’s happening in the world through a different set of eyes, without feeling so frustrated, anxious, or helpless. It’s a way you can make your own. I’m very excited to share it with you. 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

    3 min
  5. Is Your Leadership Style Fixed and Uncompromising—Or Is There Room for Growth?

    19/12/2025

    Is Your Leadership Style Fixed and Uncompromising—Or Is There Room for Growth?

    This is it! The end of the 7-day program and one final step to INTEGRATE each of the six leadership principles you’ve discovered and leaned into and to… Pull Together All the Threads… Leadership is not a fixed destination—it’s a living practice. Over the past seven days, you’ve explored six core principles that shape how you lead with queer integrity. Now it’s time to pause, reflect, and integrate. Which of the six pillars—FEEL, KNOW, THINK, VOICE, DREAM, or LEAD — is asking for your deepest attention right now? Where do you feel the greatest desire—or the greatest resistance—to step forward? Thanks for reading The Queer Integrity Dispatch! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Option A: Reflective Integration Questions If you’d like to explore more deeply, consider these: * What did you learn about yourself—or leadership—that you want to adopt as part of your leadership style? * What was most surprising, challenging, or illuminating for you throughout this journey? * Which small, consistent practice can you carry forward from each principle to embody your leadership with greater clarity, conviction, and queer integrity? Option B: Leadership Sentence Stems (Highly Recommended) If you prefer a more creative and generative reflection, complete the following sentence stems. Go back over your notes from each principle to guide you in completing each sentence. * When I FEEL well, I… * What I KNOW is… * When I THINK wisely, I am… * When I express my unique VOICE, I sound like… * My DREAM is… * I LEAD by… You might want to write these out and post them somewhere visible—a daily reminder of who you are and how you lead. A Final Question from the Margins After completing this exercise, review your responses. Then consider: What part of your queerness do you now see as a strength in your leadership—something to honour, protect, or share? You’ve done the courageous work of reflection, insight, and intention. Now, the real-world practice begins. You don’t need to be perfect, and you certainly don’t need to perform for other people’s benefit. You only need to be present—to yourself, to your values, and to the change you’re here to support. Keep leading with queer integrity: the world needs your voice, your wisdom, and your human-heartedness. Here Are My Leadership Sentence Stem responses: In case it’s helpful, here is how I answered the leadership sentence stems. What you will see is how my responses are completely in line with my coaching principles. When I FEEL well, I can lead well, and I CARE enough to make a difference. What I KNOW is that I stand for a human-hearted ethics grounded in personal responsibility, dignity, respect, and the freedom to express my creative purpose, and I am an advocate for queer rights. When I THINK wisely, I am flexible and resilient, open-minded to new ideas that may challenge both my thinking and beliefs, and strategic yet reasonable. When I express my unique VOICE, I share my ideas through vulnerability, humour, and metaphor, challenging convention and unexamined beliefs. My DREAM is to create and support meaningful and impactful social transformation that advances fairness, dignity, and respect for our common humanity. I LEAD by challenging myself to follow the path of human-heartedness, practicing non-contention, impartiality, compassion, yielding flexibility, humility, and commonality. 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

    21 min
  6. Does Your Leadership Cultivate Dignity, Respect, and Humanity?

    18/12/2025

    Does Your Leadership Cultivate Dignity, Respect, and Humanity?

    To LEAD is to live in alignment with your ethics—and to embody a kind of leadership that cultivates dignity, equity, and humanity. This is where the previous five leadership principles come together—where your values, vision, vitality, and voice converge in the service of others to truly make a meaningful difference. L – Liberation Lead in ways that liberate yourself and others from systems of oppression, fear, or conformity. This is the heart of transformational leadership: expanding freedom through ethical courage. E – Equity Make fairness, justice, and inclusion central to your leadership. You lead not to dominate, but to uplift—ensuring every voice matters and every person belongs. A – Accountability Take responsibility for your actions and impact. Ethical leadership means acting with integrity, standing by your values, and being answerable to both your conscience and your community. D – Direction Provide clear, values-based guidance that inspires others. Through your example, you offer a path forward that is principled, purposeful, and human-hearted. To LEAD is to take everything you’ve learned and lived through the previous five principles—your well-being, values, thinking, voice, and dream—and channel it into visible, influential action. This is your call to guide, to serve, and to transform. Thanks for reading The Queer Integrity Dispatch! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Do You Struggle with Criticism of Your Leadership? Recently, Adam Grant wrote on his Substack, Granted, “People who can’t handle criticism are unfit to lead. Weak leaders fear dissent as a threat to their power. They silence their critics to shield their egos. Strong leaders welcome dissent as an opportunity for growth. They silence their egos to learn from their critics.” I don’t believe that Grant’s opinion is nuanced enough—it risks overlooking the reality of human experience and our reactions. No one is above the sting of criticism, so let’s consider what’s happening when others challenge who we are or our leadership. To lead in a way to make a meaningful difference in the world is to live in full alignment with your ethics and to embody the kind of leadership that cultivates dignity, equity, and humanity. This style of leadership I’m describing is the difference between being in your own power—and being an inspiration to others to follow your lead—versus powering over others with control and force. If you’re a leader in any capacity who cares about making a positive difference in the world, you are going to come up against resistance and dissent. Let’s consider how you might feel when challenged or criticized for something you said, wrote, or did. Do you feel… * Attacked or defensive * Uncertain or unsure * Unrecognized or unvalued * Stupid or ashamed There’s value in experiencing each of those feelings and reactions when your leadership is criticized because it means you’re human. Your reaction means you care about what you are doing and the people you are supporting enough to doubt yourself. Whatever your emotional response, criticism invites you to look inward to assess your beliefs, thought process, and actions—and to decide if you need to make refinements. For me, forceful or negative criticism of my ideas is an emotional trigger based on childhood experiences. I may feel immediately defensive, and I’m better at catching myself to slow down and let my reaction pass so that I can respond thoughtfully. Perhaps I wasn’t clear enough in what I communicated—or maybe I was even wrong. If wrong, I own my mistake and correct it. However, if I believe I’m right about what I stand for, I will do my best to further explain my position and reasoning. Human-Hearted leaders and ethical change-makers create positive freedom for those they guide and support to experience more of what makes their lives meaningful and joyful. Pay attention to the word “THEIR”—it refers to both you and those you lead. You can’t cultivate meaning or joy in others without creating or experiencing it first in yourself. STEP FORWARD — Action-oriented movement and integrity. I invite you to answer the following questions to discover where you stand in your leadership efficacy. Think about a time when your leadership was called into question and ask yourself: * How did you feel? Was it one of the four examples above, or something else? * Is there an observable pattern? Meaning, is one of the four responses your most common reaction? * How did you act in the moment? Do you push through or pull back? And how is that working for you? * What was the meta-lesson? Meaning, is there an opportunity to become more skillful in dealing with criticism? * How do you want to feel and act differently the next time your leadership is criticized or questioned? * What do you need to know, or what skill do you need to feel and act in the way you described in the last question? A Final Question from the Margins After completing this exercise, review your responses. Then consider: What part of your queerness do you wish to acknowledge or celebrate as central to how you lead—both yourself and others? You are almost at the end of your journey! In tomorrow’s final lesson, we will integrate everything you have learned so far and pull together all of the threads that support a human-hearted leadership and cultivate queer integrity. 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

    23 min
  7. What Stands Between Your DREAM of Making a Difference and Reality?

    17/12/2025

    What Stands Between Your DREAM of Making a Difference and Reality?

    Your DREAM is both the vision and the method supported by the clarity you’ve gained via the previous leadership principles. This is where vision becomes action—where the one thing you most want to create and bring into the world begins to take shape. Let’s dive into the “definitions” for the DREAM Principle: D – Desire Clarify the purpose and vision that moves you—the one idea that feels most meaningful and worth pursuing. R – Render Translate that desire into reality using your natural creative strengths. This is where you bring your vision to life through the medium and mode that suit you best. E – Emotion Stay connected to the emotional states that energize and sustain you—how you FEEL; your freedom, energy, enthusiasm, and love so your work remains joyful and meaningful. A – Alignment Organize your time, space, and energy around how you naturally do your best work. This creates a rhythm that supports productivity and well-being. M – Method Use your personalized productivity blueprint to make consistent progress toward your vision with confidence, ease, and efficiency. What Stands Between Your DREAM and Your Reality? Your DREAM is your personal blueprint, the path that’s designed for you and by you. With this principle, I’ve presented several elements that work together to support the culmination of your dream. You might hold a humanitarian dream—one that may never be fully realized in your lifetime, and that depends on many more hearts and minds than your own. Still, you can seize one small, progressive step toward that dream—something tangible that gives you focus and direction. Your dream might not be that big: it might be personal, professional, or work-related. That’s fine; it’s your dream. Whether your dream is world-changing or quietly personal, what matters most is your next step toward it. Thanks for reading The Queer Integrity Dispatch! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. ENVISION—What lies between the snapshot of where you are now and where you want to be? * If you were to focus on ONE aspect of the DREAM framework (Desire, Render, Emotion, Alignment, Method), which aspect is the most important right now? * Why is it so important for you to focus on that one aspect over all the others? * What are the skills you are lacking that you could learn that would improve that aspect? * What don’t you know about that aspect that you need to learn? * From what you have identified above, what’s the one easiest thing you can do right now, or first thing tomorrow morning, to improve this aspect of your DREAM? A Final Question from the Margins After completing this exercise, review your responses. Then consider: What part of your queerness do you wish to acknowledge or celebrate as essential to your DREAM—its vision, emotion, or method? In tomorrow’s post, you’ll learn about the sixth and final principle, ‘How You LEAD.’ 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

    13 min
  8. What's Your Unique Expression for Authentic, Influential, and Impactful Communication?

    16/12/2025

    What's Your Unique Expression for Authentic, Influential, and Impactful Communication?

    How does your VOICE resonate with the people you lead? Let’s dig in… V - Vision Clarify the unique purpose and guiding vision behind your message. O - Organic Expression This is your unique message expressed from lived experience and personal truth. I - Impact Focus on creating connection and transformation, not just communication. C - Clarity Speak and write with clarity so others understand and feel moved by what you say. E - Engagement Communicate with others in the way that feels most natural and effortless for you, creating connections and inspiring others to follow your lead. Your VOICE is the unique, natural way you communicate your vision, values, and wisdom. When all the elements of your voice work in harmony, your Vision is clear, your Organic Expression flows with ease and authenticity, and you create lasting Impact because your message is attuned with who you are and what you stand for. Lastly, with Clarity, your ideas and message resonate with others, increasing Engagement that invites others to connect with your heartfelt purpose and be moved by your leadership. Thanks for reading The Queer Integrity Dispatch! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. The VOICE principle helps you craft not only how you speak or write, but also how you strategically share your message through the right mediums, with confidence and resonance—so that people truly listen, understand, and are inspired to act. Your VOICE is more than your words. Your true voice is your creative expression—your most natural and resonant way of communicating who you are and what you stand for. Each of us tends to have a dominant or preferred mode of expression—one that allows our message to be clearly understood and invites meaningful, authentic engagement. When you speak or express what you truly mean in the way that feels most alive and accurate to you, you’ve tapped into your most organic and impactful voice. For a visual artist, that might be painting or sculpting. For a writer, it could be prose or poetry. For many leaders, it’s speaking or writing. But how we express ourselves is always shaped by context. Are you speaking one-on-one, in a quiet office, on a stage, or in a Zoom meeting? Are you writing memos, social posts, strategic plans, or essays? All these environments influence how your voice is received—and how comfortable you feel in using it. What about for queer people? For many LGBTQ+ people, the way we naturally express ourselves—through voice, tone, language, or mannerisms—often doesn’t align with dominant social norms. Family, workplace, and societal expectations can pressure us to conform, suppress, or modify how we show up. If you’ve ever felt the need to mute or edit your voice to be accepted or stay safe, that’s not a personal failing. It’s survival. But over time, this survival strategy can fracture your integrity—not in a moral sense, but in the literal sense of the word: integrity as wholeness or intactness. When you hide or silence part of yourself, you may begin to feel disconnected from your full self—not because you’re doing something wrong, but because you’re not fully with yourself. You’re fitting in but not belonging. This principle of VOICE is about realigning with your most natural, intact, and impactful expression—the one that reflects your truth, honours your queerness, and resonates with those who most need to hear and understand you. EXPRESSION—Define your visibility and self-articulation. * What is your most creative and freely expressive form of communication? * What is your least favourite environment for expressing your voice—and why? * Where or how are you most easily understood? What makes that expression feel natural or effortless? * Where or how are you often misunderstood? What factors contribute to that disconnect? * How can you align more consistently with your most natural voice to create greater impact and connection? * Is there a practice or habit that supports this alignment? * Is it influenced by your location or environment? * Does it depend on the format—e.g., video, writing, or live speaking? * Does it relate to any aspect of your queerness? A Final Question from the Margins After completing this exercise, review your responses. Then consider: What part of your queerness do you want to acknowledge or celebrate that reflects your true voice—the unique expression that makes your leadership feel whole, powerful, and true? Allow yourself time for some silent reflection after completing today’s questions because tomorrow, you’ll never think of dreaming the same way again—when you discover the fifth principle, ‘What’s Your DREAM.’ 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

    16 min
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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

Information

  • Creator
    🏳️‍🌈 Darren Stehle
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    36
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    Š Darren Stehle
  • Show Website
    Leading with Queer Integrity