Human Leadership: The Courage To Face Ourselves And Each Other is Kristen Hadeed’s newest book. It’s a raw, personal account of losing herself in service to others and the challenging work of finding her way back.
It’s a story of burnout, ambition, resentment, grief, reinvention, profound self-examination, and the courage it takes to share what you discover with the people around you. By learning to face herself, tell the truth, and take ownership of her choices, Hadeed became a more courageous, compassionate leader and built a life and business that would take care of her, too.
Hadeed’s journey shows that leadership doesn’t have to mean endless sacrifice or self-abandonment. Human Leadership offers a different path―one where courage, honesty, and humanity become the foundation of meaningful leadership and a meaningful life.
Part memoir, part invitation, Hadeed’s story will empower you to:
- Recognize the values, fears, and limiting beliefs driving your leadership choices.
- Communicate more honestly with yourself and the people you lead.
- Navigate change, guilt, and difficult decisions with greater compassion.
- Build trust and connection without abandoning your boundaries or yourself.
- Recognize when frustration is pointing to an unmet need or necessary change.
- Create a fulfilling and authentic version of success.
Additional lessons you’ll learn as you read the book include:
Face What You Avoid: Look beneath burnout, overwork, and people-pleasing to the beliefs and emotions driving them.
Resentment Is A Gift: Treat resentment as information that a need or boundary has gone unspoken, rather than proof that others are the problem.
Stop Rescuing: Allow others to feel discomfort, solve their own problems, and grow instead of carrying emotional weight that is not yours.
Choose Harmony: Build a life in which work and personal priorities support one another, knowing the right arrangement can change by season.
Lead With Courage And Compassion: Tell the truth, set boundaries, ask for help, and make tough decisions without abandoning yourself or the people you lead.
In summary, Hadeed’s story shows that good leadership comes not from endless self-sacrifice but from having the courage to be more human―and to face ourselves and others with an open heart.
Hadeed shares these additional insights with us:
Question: What do you hope will be the primary takeaway from the book for leaders?
Hadeed: I wrote Human Leadership: The Courage to Face Ourselves and Each Other because I believe we can build a more human world. But before we focus on others, we first must have the courage to face ourselves.
As humans, we tend to blame external factors when we’re unhappy. We look at what’s happening around us and say that’s the reason we feel unfulfilled or resentful.
What I want readers to take away from my story is that we have the power within us to take ownership of our lives, our leadership, our careers, our cultures, and the impact we want to have on the world. But to access that power, we have to confront what’s so often standing in our way: fear. The fear of being honest about how we feel. The fear of making a change. The fear of setting boundaries. The fear of having a hard conversation we would rather avoid.
I hope to inspire people to find the courage to face their fears and lead themselves first. I want my story to show others that they already have everything they need inside of them to change their lives and the way they feel. That's what human leadership is all about.
Question: How rewarding for you was authoring the book?
Hadeed: Authoring this book is the most rewarding project I’ve ever worked on—and also the scariest.
The process of authoring this book cracked me wide open in ways that no other project has. I made a commitment to peel back the curtain and share the rawest, most vulnerable parts of my journey as a leader. Writing about those moments meant revisiting my lowest of lows and examining them in a way I hadn’t before. I had to remember what it was like to feel feelings I really didn't want to feel, that I felt guilty for feeling, that I felt ashamed of feeling, and I had to get underneath why I felt those things. I went back to each of those moments, really thought about what led me to them, and looked for the ways I could take ownership of my part in each one.
As I say in the book’s opening, writing something so honest and knowing it’s out in the world for anyone to read is absolutely terrifying. But I’m also incredibly proud of and grateful to myself for choosing to go there. I want this book to make people feel seen, and I believe that the only way to do that is to be as vulnerable and real as possible.
Question: What is the most important leadership lesson you’ve learned during your career journey?
Hadeed: When I started my first business at 19, I knew I wanted to be a leader who put others first. I measured my success by how well I served others. But somewhere along the way, I took it too far. I started telling myself that in order to put others first, it meant I had to put myself last . . . and that eventually got me to a place where I felt miserable. I had abandoned myself.
I’ve learned that if you want to be a caring leader for others, you have to come first. You must prioritize your needs over anyone else’s. That might seem counterintuitive, but if you want to lead from the most generous place possible, your relationship with yourself has to be stronger than any other relationship in your life. And that’s because the strength of your relationship with yourself directly corresponds to your capacity to care for others. Leadership is actually about learning to lead yourself first.
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Hadeed is an entrepreneur, author, and leadership speaker who helps leaders, teams, and organizations build trust, belonging, and engaged cultures. She firmly believes that authentic, human leadership can change the world. Her work has been featured in news outlets including PBS, FOX, Inc., NBC, TIME, and Forbes.
Thank you to the book’s publisher for sending me an advance copy of the book.
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