Growing Beyond the Beast: My Journey to Ethical Leadership

The Plant of Leadership book cover with a growing plant.

By Dr. Teranda Knight, DBH, IBHL, LSSGB

November 10, 2025

Growing Beyond the Beast: My Journey to Ethical Leadership

Leadership isn’t just about titles, metrics, or milestones. For me, it’s always been about integrity, healing, and transformation. That’s why I wrote The Plant of Leadership: Cultivating Ethical Growth in Times of Adversity. This book is more than a professional offering. It’s a personal declaration. It’s the story of how I survived toxic systems, reclaimed my voice, and built a framework to help others do the same.

Why I Had to Write This Book

I’ve spent years consulting and coaching leaders in higher education and behavioral health fields that demand compassion, resilience, and ethical clarity. But I kept seeing the same patterns: brilliant, mission-driven people burning out, compromising their values, and losing themselves in systems that were never designed to support their well-being.

I was one of them.

I’ve felt the weight of impossible expectations. I’ve watched institutions prioritize performance over people. I’ve seen leaders fed to the very systems they were trying to reform. That’s when I realized: we need a new way to lead. One that doesn’t just survive adversity, but grows through it.

What Is the Beast? & Why I Refuse to Feed It?

In my book, I introduce the concept of “The Beast.” It’s not a person. It’s a metaphor for systemic toxicity. The Beast thrives on fear, silence, and burnout. It’s the culture that tells us to sacrifice our health for productivity, to ignore our values for metrics, and to keep quiet when things go wrong.

I created two guiding principles to help leaders resist this pressure:

• #NeverFeedTheBeast: This is my ethical imperative. It means I refuse to compromise my integrity just to meet broken expectations.

• #NeverFedTheBeast: This is my personal imperative. It’s a commitment to my own well-being. I won’t allow myself to be consumed by systems that don’t care if I survive.

These principles have become the foundation of my work, and my life.

The Plant of Leadership: A Living Framework

Instead of offering another checklist or corporate model, I chose a metaphor that reflects the organic, evolving nature of leadership: a plant.

Leadership, like a plant, needs the right conditions to grow. It needs healthy soil, sunlight, water, and pruning. Each chapter of my book explores a different part of this metaphor:

• Soil Conditions: The culture and systems we’re planted in.

• Root Rot: The hidden decay of burnout and moral injury.

• Photosynthesis of Power: How we recharge through authenticity and psychological capital.

• Pruning the Beast: Removing toxic influences from our environment.

• Watering with Wisdom: Using emotional intelligence and ethical judgment.

• Sunlight and Shadows: Embracing visibility and vulnerability.

• Cross-Pollination: Building ethical communities and collaborations.

• Blooming in Adversity: Transforming trauma into growth.

• Tools for Growth: Evidence-based strategies and self-assessment.

• Harvesting Change: Leading systemic reform with integrity.

This framework isn’t just theoretical. It’s deeply personal. It reflects my own healing, my own leadership evolution, and my commitment to helping others do the same.

Who This Book Is For

If you’re a leader who’s ever felt overwhelmed, disillusioned, or ethically compromised, this book is for you.

If you’ve been told to “just push through” while your health deteriorates, or if you’ve had to make decisions that haunt you because the system gave you no other choice, I see you. I’ve been there. And I wrote this book to help you find your way back to yourself.

Whether you’re in education, behavioral health, nonprofit work, or any high-stakes field, The Plant of Leadership offers tools to:

• Reclaim your integrity and voice.

• Heal from burnout and moral injury.

• Build psychologically safe environments.

• Advocate for ethical, systemic change.

• Lead with authenticity, wisdom, and resilience.

What You’ll Find Inside

I’ve woven together research, case studies, personal stories, and practical tools. You’ll find:

• A free self-assessment to help you evaluate your growth.

• Strategies for trauma-informed leadership.

• Exercises for values clarification, self-compassion, and somatic regulation.

• Insights into emotional intelligence and adaptive leadership.

• A roadmap for ethical reform in your organization.

But I’ve also been careful not to give everything away. This article is just a glimpse. The full depth of the book. Its stories, tools, and transformative insights are waiting for you inside.

Why Now?

We’re living in a time of nonstop crisis. Leaders are being asked to do more with less, to carry the emotional weight of entire systems, and to navigate constant change. The old models of leadership aren’t working. They’re breaking us.

I believe it’s time for a new model; one rooted in healing, ethics, and sustainability. That’s what The Plant of Leadership offers. It’s not just a book. It’s a movement. And I invite you to be part of it.

Where to Get It

You can find The Plant of Leadership: Cultivating Ethical Growth in Times of Adversity on Kindle and other major platforms. For bulk orders, speaking engagements, or consulting inquiries, reach out to me directly:

📧 tknight@virtuallyrenownedconsulting.onmicrosoft.com🌐 www.virtuallyrenownedconsultingaccessllc.org/bookstore

📱 TikTok: @vrcabydrknight

📘 ISBN: 9798271421884

Final Thoughts

I didn’t write this book to impress anyone. I wrote it because I had to. Because I’ve seen too many leaders suffer in silence. Because I believe we can do better. Because I know that ethical leadership isn’t just possible, it’s necessary.

If you’re ready to grow beyond the Beast, to cultivate a leadership style that’s rooted in truth, compassion, and resilience, then I invite you to take this journey with me.

Let’s plant something powerful. Let’s grow something that lasts.