Books
Every book makes the same case from a different angle: the rules we use to judge leadership were never built for everyone. And the fix isn't becoming someone else.
The Lies We Lead By
The Rules We Inherited. The Truth We Choose.
Michelle Odhiambo
Coming November 30, 2026
The Rules We Inherited. The Truth We Choose.
Visible, but never too loud.
Authoritative, but never difficult.
Excellent, but never a threat.
Nobody wrote those rules down. You worked them out one correction at a time, and you got good at them. So good that you started enforcing them yourself, before anyone had to ask. I did it for years.
The Lies We Lead By names the beliefs you were handed and called values. Code-Switching as Professionalism. Gratitude as Payment. The Lie That Good Work Speaks for Itself. Each one shows where it came from, why it made sense, what it bought you, and what it cost.
This book will not tell you to break the rules, and it will not promise that any of this gets easier.
It promises that the next time you hold back a sentence, you will know exactly what you are doing.
Ebook pre-orders open November 2, at $7.99 through launch week. Paperback November 30.
Leadership Without the Noise
You've been told to speak up more. To be bolder. More visible. More "leader-like." And you've spent years wondering why that advice never quite fit.
The leadership blueprint was never written for you. It was built for the loudest person in the room.
Unapologetically Quiet is a practical, honest, and occasionally petty guide to leading as exactly who you are, without apology and without shrinking to make anyone else more comfortable.
Your quiet is not a liability. It never was.
Paperback $16.99 · Ebook $11.99
Still to come
Until Now, and Wit and Wisdom in Heels.
Michelle Odhiambo is a leadership coach, operations executive, and author of Unapologetically Quiet and The Lies We Lead By. She writes for leaders whose work is real and keeps getting misread.
For speaking, podcast, and workshop requests: hello@unapologeticallymichelle.com