Lynn Horan, PhD Leadership & Life Development

01/05/2026

Extremely grateful to be publishing my next academic journal article “Exploiting Empathetic Women Leaders and the Shadow Side of Servant Leadership” in the Journal of Management Spirituality & Religion's upcoming special issue "The Spiritual Dimensions of Love in Leadership: Critical Perspectives, Shadow Aspects, and Integral Approaches."

Special thanks to the JMSR editorial board and guest editors Dr. Mohammed Raei and Dr. Aqeel Tirmizi for embracing this work.

To learn more visit:
https://www.lynnhoran.com/journal-of-management-spirituality-and-religion.html

01/02/2026

Yesterday I drove through the backroads near our home in upstate New York and noticed the landscape had completely transformed. Thick pine boughs hovered over the roads like archways leading to Narnia, while barren cornfields now blanketed in snow were wind swept and dotted with animal tracks.

It seems like yesterday that our favorite apple orchard was brimming with hardy fruit - but now displaying rows of grey tangled branches bowing to the earth in a gesture of deep surrender.

I soaked up the stillness of the early setting sun, having been in a postpartum haze for the past two weeks. My fourth and final baby was born amid this seasonal shift, and as I prepared to leave the hospital on the first day of winter, I marveled at the timing of all this.

The Yule season has a way of dismissing our plans and replacing them with a broader sense of purpose, patience, and preparation. For those of us who strive for predictable schedules, visible achievements, and linear progress, this season challenges us to turn inward toward the unchartered crevices of self-discovery.

I always find that my body needs this season, especially now. As I adjust to being a mom of four, I am in awe of how Mother Nature has gifted me with a slower pace, even as I manage the new demands and heightened energy of family life.

Wherever you find yourself this season, may it STRETCH you in ways that remind you of your STRENGTH, yet also usher in the kind of peace that quietly TRANSFORMS the ground beneath you.

www.lynnhoran.com

01/01/2026

My work weaves together trauma-informed research, women-centered coaching, and embodied social change in ways that challenge the very foundations of how we understand women's leadership.

Through this work, I am guided by a fundamental belief -- when women RECLAIM their agency, voice, and truth, entire systems TRANSFORM.

As I look to the new year, I'm committed to creating BRAVE spaces where women leaders can METABOLIZE family and workplace trauma, set radical boundaries, and REIMAGINE leadership one embodied insight at a time.

www.lynnhoran.com

12/31/2025

⭐Celebrating 2025⭐

As I reflect on the past year, I am extremely grateful for those who have accompanied me, inspired me, and encouraged my work to foster voice, agency, and purpose among empathetic women leaders in our varied roles and leadership spaces.

⭐2025 Highlights:

🌿 Published my doctoral research "DISMANTLED: Abusive Church Culture and the Clergy Women Who Leave," which was a #1 NEW RELEASE in Self-Help for Abuse and #2 BEST SELLER in Gender & Sexuality in Religious Studies on Amazon.
www.lynnhoran.com/dismantled

Thanks to the courageous women leaders who participated in this research, this body of work reveals the systemic issues of workplace psychological abuse and gendered scapegoating of empathetic women leaders and offers strength-based pathways of recovery and healing within and beyond toxic workplace culture.

⭐ Additional Publications:

🌿 Contributed the chapter "Activism, Performance, and Spiritual Ritual: The Roots of Embodied Social Change" in the anthology "Leadership at the Spiritual Edge: Exploring Emerging and Non-Western Concepts of Spirituality and Leadership" (Routledge), which became a TOP 20 Amazon book under Occupational & Organizational Psychology.
www.lynnhoran.com/leadership-at-the-spiritual-edge.html

🌿 Contributed the chapter “Reconstituting Self Beyond Toxic Workplace Culture,” in the International Leadership Association’s Transformative Women Leaders Book Series, coming March 2026.
www.lynnhoran.com/transformative-women-leaders-book-series.html

🌿 Journal article “Exploiting Empathetic Women Leaders and the Shadow Side of Servant Leadership” accepted for publication in the Journal of Management, Spirituality, and Religion, coming June 2026.

🌿 Served as a peer reviewer for three academic journals in gender, leadership, politics, and religion.

⭐ Coaching and Advocacy:

🌿 Received the INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY "Your Story, Your Impact" Award, which I was able to use to support my colleagues at Paz y Esperanza in central Peru and their work with survivors of sexual abuse and domestic violence.

🌿 Launched and expanded GOAT WALKERS, my coaching program for empathetic, purpose-driven women navigating new thresholds and life transitions.
www.lynnhoran.com/goat-walkers.html

🌿 Presented on GENDERED SCAPEGOATING at the International Conference on Heroes in Contemporary Culture.

⭐To learn more visit: www.lynnhoran.com

12/27/2025

It’s such an honor to be featured on Antioch University’s 2025 book list for the Graduate School of Leadership Change, alongside Antioch professors Dr. Rengin Firat and Dr. Michell Kusy.

My 2025 release of DISMANTLED: Abusive Church Culture and the Clergy Women Who Leave (Tehom Center Publishing), focuses on the systemic issues of feminized servanthood and gendered scapegoating within empathetic and care-giving professions. Through a strength-based feminist approach, DISMANTLED highlights embodied leadership practices that support women who are healing from trauma and psychological abuse within and beyond toxic workplace culture.

To learn more visit: www.lynnhoran.com/dismantled

12/13/2025

⭐️ As I support other women to reclaim VOICE, VALUE, and PURPOSE beyond toxic work, religious, and family systems, there is often a common thread of recovery from toxic theologies and religious-based trauma.

⭐️ In my own journey beyond church culture, both personally and professionally, I have found COMFORT and renewed INSIGHT from SANTA LUCIA, who is celebrated today in many Nordic communities, both religious and non-religious. Her iconography resonates with the pre-Christian Nordic Yule tradition, winter solstice observers, as well as faith-oriented feminists.

⭐️ The histories written about Santa Lucia are visceral and hauntingly powerful in their relevance to the continued need to respect and honor women’s BOUNDARIES, BODIES, and CHOICES.

"Night comes with heavy steps through our land, calling.
Sunlight, the earth forgets; shadows are falling.
However dark the night, rising with candles bright,
Santa Lucia! Santa Lucia!"

~ Italian & Swedish Folksong

www.lynnhoran.com

12/02/2025

It’s such an honor to be invited to endorse my dear friend and colleague Elaine Murray’s new book: In Your End Is Your Beginning: A Memoir and Spiritual Wayfinding Manual (Tehom Center Publishing)

Order wherever books are sold!

11/30/2025

Thrilled to share the cover for my upcoming publication in "INSPIRATIONAL WOMEN LEADERS: The Challenges and Rewards of Religion, Spirituality, Purpose, and Calling in Leadership" - final book in the International Leadership Association's Transformative Women Leaders Book Series.

I'm so grateful to be part of this incredible community of authors and change makers and to share my research on EMPATHETIC WOMEN LEADERS and the process of embodied healing and reconstituting of self beyond toxic workplace culture.

Learn more at:
https://www.lynnhoran.com/transformative-women-leaders-book-series.html

11/30/2025

I am deeply moved by this latest review of my book DISMANTLED: Abusive Church Culture and the Clergy Women Who Leave

I’m so grateful for how this body of work continues to move in the world, impacting the field of gender and embodied leadership, and transforming the lives of empathetic women leaders who are experiencing and recovering from toxic workplace cultures.

www.lynnhoran.com/dismantled

11/24/2025

🕯️Are unsustainable EXPECTATIONS preventing you from enjoying the holiday season? Are you longing to RE-CLAIM traditions in a way that reflects your deepest values and priorities?

🕯️The holiday season is an important OPPORTUNITY for women to identify the ways in which harmful narratives of self-sacrifice can lead to exhaustion, burnout, and a loss of self.

🕯️Making INTENTIONAL choices around how and with whom you celebrate this season is an important step in building a balanced and THRIVING life.

Have you been struggling to cultivate a season of meaning amid others EXPECTATIONS? Are you longing to RE-CLAIM traditions in a way that reflects your deepes...

11/21/2025

❄️The holidays often place EXCESSIVE demands on caregiving women. As a work-from-home mother and former clergy, I too have been drawn into UNSUSTAINABLE patterns of servanthood and people-pleasing, which can lead to denial of our own deep spiritual needs as we curate a season of meaning for others.

❄️ As a leadership and life coach for empathetic, purpose-driven women, I am passionate about helping other women RE-CLAIM this season through intentional boundaries that HONOR the rituals of the season WITHOUT ERASURE of self.

DM to learn more or visit www.lynnhoran.com

11/17/2025

✨ELEN of the WAYS: Finding Clarity in the Shifting Seasons✨

✨ During this time of year, my focus on the psychological safety of empathetic women leaders moves to the more intimate spaces of the home and hearth, where traditions of HEALING, GATHERING, and GUIDING take root.

✨ As a former clergy, I’ve always questioned a strictly Christo-centric lens to the season and find meaning in a more expansive approach that celebrates the divine feminine, the CYCLICAL MOVEMENTS of nature, and the powerful shifts associated with the approaching Winter Solstice.

✨ I’ve been especially drawn to the tradition of ELEN of the WAYS, an ancient Celtic goddess associated with migratory pathways and journeys. She is an important archetype dating back to the Ice Age, when hunter-gatherer communities relied on deer herding patterns and celestial movements to find their way.

✨ Elen of the Ways is often depicted with deer antlers, flying through the night sky revealing ancient "trackways" and "leys," a symbol of GUIDANCE, INTUITION, and sacred movement across both physical and spiritual landscapes.

✨ Western depictions of Santa’s reindeer build on this narrative. However, while modern understandings assume the flying herd is male, they are more accurately female. Reindeer are the only deer species in which females grow antlers, which remain through the winter months to forage for food, while males lose their antlers in the fall.

✨ Recapturing the feminine tradition of Elen of the Ways brings new life and opportunities for BELIEF and IMAGINATION during a season that can be easily overlooked by more dominant narratives.

“Lady of the ancient track, be by our side when the stars are dim and few” ~ Prayer of Elen