The Leader I needed is the Leader I Became: Leadership is not Neutral - Paperback

The Leader I Needed is a powerful and deeply human exploration of what leadership should feel like, written by nurse, healthcare executive, and leadership strategist Rashonbah Rogers, MSN. Blending memoir with transformational leadership insight, Rogers takes readers on a journey from her childhood hospital bed to the boardrooms where she learned that leadership is not neutral-it either builds people, or breaks them.

As a child, Rogers spent years in and out of hospitals, experiencing both the fear of being alone and the profound impact of nurses who stayed by her side. Those early encounters shaped her understanding of presence, compassion, and the emotional safety that true caregivers provide. They also planted the seed for the kind of leader she would one day become.

As an adult, Rogers rose through the ranks of healthcare leadership, driven by purpose and grounded in lived experience. But the higher she climbed, the more she encountered environments that failed to protect their people-systems where burnout was normalized, boundaries were blurred, and leaders were unprepared to support the very teams they depended on. Her own experiences with betrayal, exhaustion, and identity loss forced her to confront a painful truth: passion without protection leads to burnout, and leadership without intention causes harm.

From that reckoning came the T.A.M.I.A.(TM) Leadership Framework-Trust, Accountability, Mindset, Intentional Leadership, and Advocacy-a model built from the leadership she needed during her most vulnerable moments. Through honest storytelling and practical guidance, Rogers shows readers how to create environments where people feel safe, valued, and able to grow.

The Leader I Needed is for nurses, leaders, and anyone who has ever questioned their worth in systems that failed to see them. It is a call to lead with clarity instead of chaos, integrity instead of convenience, and purpose instead of pressure. More than a book, it is a blueprint for building people, strengthening culture, and leaving a legacy rooted in humanity.