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Leadership Books by Authors with Disabilities (2026)

In honor of National Disability Employment Awareness Month (NDEAM), we curated this list to promote leadership books by authors with disabilities. This list is meant to be a resource, not an official endorsement. The books are not ranked or listed in any particular order.

Check out our other leadership book lists by authors who identify as LGBTQIA+, AANHPI, Native American, women, and Hispanic/ Latino/ Latinx.

  1. A Body, Undone: Living On After Great Pain — Christina Crosby
  2. A Face for Picasso: Coming of Age with Crouzon Syndrome — Ariel Henley
  3. ADHD Advantage, The: What You Thought Was a Diagnosis May Be Your Greatest Strength — Dale Archer, MD
  4. Adult ADHD: How to Succeed as a Hunter in a Farmer’s World — Thom Hartmann
  5. Aftershocks — Virginia Eubanks
  6. An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness — Kay Redfield Jamison
  7. And Now We Are Going to Have a Party: Liner Notes to a Writer’s Early Life — Nicola Griffith
  8. Apocalyptic Best Practices: A unique approach to fear and change — Elisebeth VanderWeil
  9. Articulate: A Deaf Memoir of Voice — Rachel Kolb
  10. ASL Saved My Life…Until it didn’t — Jenni Kleinman Berebitsky
  11. Authentic: The Myth of Bringing Your Full Self to Work — Judy Ann Burey
  12. Be Different — John Elder Robison
  13. Being Heumann: An unrepentant memoir of a disability rights activist — Judith E. Heumann
  14. Black, Blind, In Charge: A Story of Visionary Leadership — David A Paterson
  15. Bless the Blood: A Cancer Memoir — Walela Nehanda
  16. Blind: A Memoir — Belo Cipriani
  17. Body Silent, The: The Different World of the Disabled — Robert Francis Murphy
  18. Body Weather: Notes on Chronic Illness in the Anthropocene — Lorraine Boissoneault
  19. Body, Remember: A memoir — Kenny Fries
  20. Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness — Susannah Cahalan
  21. Breaking Free: Stop Following Expectations and Start Following Yourself — Spencer West
  22. Brilliant Imperfection: Grappling with Cure — Eli Clare
  23. Calling all Minds: How to Think and Create Like an Inventor — Temple Grandin
  24. Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice — Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
  25. Catching Sight: How a Guide Dog Helped Me See Myself — Deni Elliott
  26. Chef Interrupted — Trevis Gleason
  27. Claiming Disability: Knowledge and Identity — Simi Linton
  28. Count Us In: Growing Up with Down Syndrome — Jason Kingsley & Mitchell Levitz
  29. Crazy, Who Me?: My Journey as a Leader Overcoming Depression — John Panigas
  30. Deaf in Japan: Signing and the Politics of Identity — Karen Nakamura
  31. Deaf Utopia: A Memoir―and a Love Letter to a Way of Life — Nyle DiMarco
  32. Defiant — Michael Scott Monje Jr.
  33. Demystifying Disability: What to Know, What to Say, and How to Be an Ally — Emily Ladau
  34. Difference That Disability Makes, The — Rod Michalko
  35. Disability Experience, The: Working Toward Belonging — Hannalora Leavitt
  36. Disability Incarcerated: Imprisonment and Disability in the US and Canada — Liat Ben-moshe, et al.
  37. Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century — Alice Wong
  38. Disabled Leadership — Dr. Tom A. Wiggins
  39. Disarm Your Limits: The flight formula to lift you to success — Jessica Cox
  40. Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability and Making Space — Amanda Leduc
  41. Dissonant Disabilities: Women With Chronic Illness Explore Their Lives — Michelle Owen & Diane Driedger
  42. Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot — John Callahan
  43. Elegy for a Disease: A Personal and Cultural History of Polio — Anne Finger
  44. Essential Franklin Delano Roosevelt, The — Franklin Roosevelt
  45. Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness, and Liberation — Eli Clare
  46. Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture — Rosemarie Garland-Thomson
  47. Fading Scars: My Queer Disability History — Corbett O’Toole
  48. Fall Down, Laughing: How Squiggy caught multiple sclerosis — David Lander
  49. Fearlessly Different: An Autistic Actor’s Journey to Broadway — Mickey Rowe
  50. Feminist Queer Crip — Alison Kafer
  51. Find Another Dream — Maysoon Zayid
  52. Fully Recovered Mindset, The — Maddie Neibanck
  53. Gaby Brimmer: An Autobiography in Three Voices — Gaby Brimmer & Elena Poniatowska
  54. Ghost in My Brain, The: How a Concussion Stole My Life — Clark Elliott
  55. Goalkeeper: Memoir of Poet Peter Street — Peter Street
  56. Golem Girl — Riva Lehrer
  57. Great and Unfortunate Things — Jason Arday
  58. Haben: The deafblind woman who conquered Harvard Law — Haben Girma
  59. History of My Shoes and the Evolution of Darwin’s Theory, The — Kenny Fries
  60. Holding Change: The Way of Emergent Strategy Facilitation — Adrienne Maree Brown
  61. House of Prayer No. 2 — Mark Richard
  62. How I Became a Human Being: A Disabled Man’s Quest for Independence — Mark O’Brien
  63. How I See It: A Personal and Historical View of Disability — H Penny Mishkin
  64. How to Live Free in a Dangerous World: A Decolonial Memoir — Shayla Lawson
  65. I Am Not a Label — Cerrie Burnell
  66. I Am Schizophrenic: Poetry from a beautiful brain — Kerenza Ryan
  67. I Identify as Blind: A Brazen Celebration of Disability Culture, Identity, and Power — Lachi
  68. I Live a Life Like Yours: A Memoir — Jan Grue
  69. I Would Die If I Were You: Notes on Art and Truth-Telling — Emily Rapp Black
  70. I’ll Scream Later — Marlee Matlin
  71. If at Birth You Don’t Succeed: My Adventures with Disaster — Zach Anner
  72. In the Province of Gods — Kenny Fries
  73. Inspiration Porn: Essays — Ryan O’Connell
  74. Interabled: True Stories About Love and Disability from Squirmy & Grubs and Other Interabled Couples — Shane Burcaw
  75. It Wasn’t Meant to Be Perfect: A Memoir — Gaelynn Lea
  76. Jelly, Baby: Essays on Disability and Vulnerability — Therese Estacion
  77. Just Human: The Quest for Disability Wisdom, Respect, and Inclusion — Arielle Silverman, PhD
  78. Laughing at My Nightmare — Shane Burcaw
  79. Learning from Neurodivergent Leaders: How to Start, Survive and Thrive in Leadership — Nancy Doyle
  80. Life in the Mind Interrupted: Essays on Mental Health — Katie Rose Guest Pryal
  81. Limitless: The Power of Hope and Resilience — Mallory Weggemann
  82. Look Ma, No Hands: A Chronic Pain Memoir — Gabrielle Drolet
  83. Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger’s — John Elder Robison
  84. Loud Hands: Autistic People, Speaking — Julia Bascom
  85. Mad at School: Rhetorics of Mental Disability and Academic Life — Margaret Price
  86. Madness: A Bipolar Life — Marya Hornbacher
  87. Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me — Ellen Forney
  88. Mean Baby: A Memoir of Growing Up — Selma Blair
  89. Mean Little Deaf Queer: A Memoir — Terry Galloway
  90. More the Same than Different: What I Wish People Knew — Lorraine Cannistra
  91. Mother Tongue: A Memoir — Sara Nović
  92. Moving Violations: Warzones, Wheelchairs, and Declarations — John Hockenberry
  93. My Body is Not a Prayer Request: Disability Justice in the Church — Amy Kenny
  94. My Name Means Fire — Atash Yaghmaian
  95. Neuroinclusion: A Guide for Managers and Leaders — Liv Blaney and Sam Pringle
  96. Not a Poster Child: Living Well with a Disability – A Memoir — Francine Falk-Allen
  97. Nothing about us without us: disability oppression and empowerment — James I. Charlton
  98. Obsessive Joy of Autism, The — Julia Bascom
  99. Older Autistic Adults: In Their Own Words: The Lost Generation — Robert S. Lagos
  100. On the Move: A Life — Oliver Sacks
  101. On the Spectrum: Autism, Faith, and the Gifts of Neurodiversity — Daniel Bowman Jr.
  102. Planet of the Blind — Stephen Kuusisto
  103. Poster Child: A Memoir — Emily Rapp Black
  104. Pretty One, The: on life, pop culture, disability, and other reasons — Keah Brown
  105. Rare Good: Essays on Art, Autism, and Astonishment — Steve Edwards
  106. Resistance and Hope: Essays by Disabled People — Alice Wong (editor)
  107. Rolling Warrior: A Rebel Girl on Wheels Who Helped Spark a Revolution — Judith Heumann
  108. Rough Waters: From Surviving to Thriving with Muscular Dystrophy — Heather C. Markham
  109. Seeing What Others Cannot See: The Hidden Advantages of Visual Thinkers and Differently Wired Brains — Thomas G. West
  110. Sick: A Memoir — Porochista Khakpour
  111. Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body — Rebekah Taussig
  112. Songs of the Gorilla Nation: My Journey Through Autism — Dawn Prince-Hughes
  113. Speedbumps: Flooring it through Hollywood — Teri Garr
  114. Staring: How We Look — Rosemarie Garland-Thomson
  115. Still Me — Christopher Reeve
  116. Story of My Life, The — Helen Keller
  117. Strangers Assume My Girlfriend Is My Nurse — Shane Burcaw
  118. Successful to Burnt Out: Experiences of Women on the Autism Spectrum — Karletta Abianac
  119. Switched On: A Memoir of Brain Change and Emotional Awakening — John Elder Robison
  120. The Anti-Ableist Manifesto: Smashing Stereotypes, Forging Change, and Building a Disability-Inclusive World — Tiffany Yu
  121. The Canary Code: A Guide to Neurodiversity, Dignity, and Intersectional Belonging at Work — Ludmila Praslova
  122. The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness — Meghan O’Rourke
  123. The Neurodiversity Edge — Maureen Dunne
  124. The Simple Guide to ADHD Regulation: The Secret to Finding Balance, Getting Things Done, and Enjoying Your Life — Jenna Free
  125. Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism — Temple Grandin
  126. Too Late to Die Young: Nearly True Tales from a Life — Harriet McBryde Johnson
  127. Typed Words, Loud Voices — Various (Authors), Amy Sequenzia & Elizabeth Grace
  128. Unfit Parent: A Disabled Mother Challenges an Inaccessible World — Jessica Slice
  129. Unleash Different: Achieving Business Success Through Disability — Rich Donovan
  130. Unmasking for Life: The Autistic Person’s Guide to Connecting, Loving, and Living Authentically — Devon Price
  131. Unseen: How I Lost My Vision but Found My Voice — Molly Burke
  132. Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships — Temple Grandin
  133. Waist-High in the World: A Life Among the Nondisabled — Nancy Mairs
  134. Walking Papers: The Accident that Changed My Life — Francesco Clark
  135. Way I See It, The: A Personal Look at Autism and Asperger’s — Temple Grandin
  136. We Are Never Meeting in Real Life — Smantha Irby
  137. What Doesn’t Kill You: A Life with Chronic Illness — Tessa Miller
  138. When the Chant Comes — Kay Ulanday Barrett
  139. White Album, The — Joan Didion
  140. Why I Burned My Book and Other Essays on Disability — Paul K. Longmore
  141. Wishful Drinking — Carrie Fisher
  142. World I Live In, The — Helen Keller
  143. Year of the Tiger: An Activist’s Life — Alice Wong
  144. You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me — Sherman Alexie

View all of our leadership book lists here.

Taking for granted when others stretch for us

Julie at the airport preparing bundles of rubber bands to illustrate the Rubber Band Rule for a keynote talk.
Julie at the airport preparing bundles of rubber bands to illustrate the Rubber Band Rule for a keynote talk.
Image caption: Julie at the airport preparing bundles of rubber bands to illustrate the Rubber Band Rule for a keynote talk.

September 18 marks National Respect Day, so I thought I’d share my most current thinking on respect.

Listen to Julie read this newsletter on YouTube

When I first started my research on what would become the 7 Forms of Respect®  framework, I asked people what respect looked like to them. Many cited the “Golden Rule: Treat people the way you would want to be treated.” Then I would ask, “What if someone doesn’t want to be treated the way you want to be treated?” The Golden Rule doesn’t always apply.

That’s why I came up with the “Rubber Band Rule” of respect, which reflects how we all intuitively stretch for others because we want to show people respect in the ways that matter to them. Sometimes we stretch so much to accommodate others that we end up snapping and breaking. The Rubber Band Rule is about learning what our breaking points are so that we don’t let ourselves constantly snap as we try to respect others. While the Rubber Band Rule can help us identify our boundaries, the rule reminds us to be aware that respect is dynamic and stretchy.

Here’s the thing: Stretching is good for us. I don’t want to live in a world where no one stretches. Since we all define respect differently, mutual respect requires our willingness to stretch.

Nowadays, there’s so much talk about setting our own boundaries because we’re tired of accommodating others, that we can take for granted how much other people actually stretch for us. 

I experienced that myself recently. Here’s what happened: I had arranged to take my friend, “Pete,” who was visiting Seattle, on a special outing hosted by an acquaintance of mine, “Leslie.” Less than 36 hours before we were scheduled to meet, Pete asked me if I could reschedule with Leslie to later that week. He said, “I can go at the original time, but I will be very tired from working late the night before.” 

At first, I felt my time and effort was disrespected. I hate changing plans with such short notice and felt like I would potentially hurt my relationship with an acquaintance who was doing me a favor. So, I was going to ask Pete to stick to the original plan. But then I realized he was revealing how he needed to prioritize rest. So, I told Pete I didn’t want to impose more on Leslie by asking her to reschedule, so I would apologize on his behalf and cancel. I also said I’d appreciate more notice from him in the future when asking to change our plans.

I could tell Pete was relieved. He apologized profusely the next day. That’s when I recognized how much Pete didn’t want to disappoint me. He had put off asking me to reschedule until he had to be honest with himself about how exhausted he’d be if he tried to stick to the original plan. I’m glad Pete spoke his truth.

Pete and I were in a tough situation where there was no perfect solution to make everyone happy. We were honest about our breaking points. Respect is tested everyday just like this in these seemingly small, unanticipated conflicts.  

When you think about respect, don’t just think about how much you personally stretch. Think about how others might be stretching to show you respect, while also trying to not snap and break themselves.

Respect isn’t always simple and straightforward. The Rubber Band Rule of respect recognizes life’s many unpredictable variables. When did you experience someone not showing you respect in the way you wanted, and then you realized how much they were actually stretching for you? 

I’d love to hear from you. 

Best, 

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