(coming summer 2026...)

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The Leader in Chains is a haunting psychological thriller about the leaders who quietly vanish when their people need them most—and the leadermaker obsessed with finding out why.

The leaders are scattered among us. They move through ordinary routines carrying an extraordinary burden: the instinct to step toward suffering, the sense that they are the ones meant to make things right. And yet, without warning, without explanation, they withdraw. They step back. They disappear from the work that once defined them.

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Their vanishing turns a private struggle into something far more disturbing—a mystery that haunts those who remember what they were meant to do and raises questions no one seems able to answer. Where did they go? Why did they vanish? Will they return?

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For years, Dan Duckworth has searched for the missing leaders. His determination drags him into a twisting hunt through dark rooms, dead ends, and unsettling revelations—each encounter pulling him.

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As the mystery unravels, he uncovers startling truths about leadership—and about the people who claim to guard it. What he discovers will forever alter how you understand leadership, oppression, and the hidden forces that silence the leaders among us.

The Leader in Chains is the book you’ve been waiting for—and the one you always feared would find you.

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DAN DUCKWORTH earned a Master’s in Public Policy from the University of Michigan. After several high-intensity leadership campaigns, he was recruited to teach others how to lead. Working deep inside the leadership machine, he built revolutionary programs that defied conventional wisdom—and uncovered a disturbing pattern no one else was talking about. The Leader in Chains, his first book, is the culmination of that hunt. He lives on the edge of Utah Lake with his wife and six children.

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Why Me?

The Leader in Chains has been a decade in the making. And for the last 13 months, it’s been my full-time work—every day, all-in. It’s not a business book and it’s not a self-help manual. It’s a narrative-driven thriller–memoir–manifesto built on a simple premise:

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In Chains, I name the hidden forces that are suffocating leaders: the system, the chains, the narratives, the expectations, the danger. I take the leadership industry head-on to reclaim leadership for the ones it always belonged to. And I tell the truth about what leadership really is (it’s not what they’ve told us) and where this ancient power really comes from (also not what they’ve told us). And I do it all through a riveting story that unfolds and stacks the revelations so they can't be glossed over.

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Why now?

Because all over the world, the real leaders are starting to stir. A leadership revival is already in the making. What we lack is a shared identity and a shared language to find each other, rally the ones who are waking up, and knit our hearts together in the work of liberating the world and exalting our communities beyond the suffering we’ve inherited.

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Why you?

Because you feel the ache. Because you know the call. Because your chains are rattling. Because you’re searching for your name and looking for your people. Because you know the cost of doing nothing. Because the people you love and the communities you care about are quietly pleading with you to rise up, to do more, to lead. Because you need us, and we need you.