> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.mikebakerhq.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Get Out of the Way - URL: https://www.mikebakerhq.com/books/get-out-of-the-way/ - Published: 2026-08-02T05:48:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-08-02T18:58:06.000Z - Description: Women do not need more praise from men who still keep the budget, the final decision, the protection, and the credit. - Author: Mike Baker - Tags: #book, #believing-women, #Import 2026-08-02 10:18 [Buy on Amazon →](https://a.co/d/09yxLazC?ref=mikebakerhq.com) [Free companion workbook](#workbook) Paperback and hardcover · First edition, 2026 ## Why this book exists I wrote this book as a man who still holds power. That is the most honest place for me to begin. I am a husband, a father, a CEO, and someone who has spent much of his life in rooms where men were trusted faster, forgiven more easily, and imagined forward with less proof. I have benefited from that. A book about power would fail if I only used it to point at other men. I grew up Mormon, inside a leadership framework that was overwhelmingly male. Men presided, held priesthood authority, led meetings, gave blessings, and made final calls. Women served, organized, remembered, nurtured, and held communities together. Nobody had to tell a boy that men belonged at the front. The arrangement taught its own lesson. I carried parts of that lesson longer than I understood. Years later, a friend made an observation about our senior leadership at Heritage Health. At that moment, women were missing from some important seats. The men serving there were good leaders, chosen for real skills and the needs of the organization. Her comment still forced me to look beyond individual decisions and examine the ecosystem around them: who gets developed, whose potential is noticed, who receives sponsorship, who is trusted through a learning curve, and whose leadership is treated as support instead of authority. That question mattered even more because Heritage Health was founded in large part through the courage, care, and persistence of Lidwin Dirne. She saw people being left without care and refused to accept that as the final answer. I did not create the ground I stand on. I am one person stewarding work that women helped build, and that should affect how I use authority now. The same accounting belongs at home. Kellie and I joke about the magic fairy who notices the trash, remembers the thing, clears the counter, and moves what everyone else walks past. The joke stings because invisible labor is still labor. I have missed work at home because Kellie was quietly carrying details I had not trained myself to see. Admiring a woman’s strength is not the same as sharing the weight that made strength necessary. Watching Kellie and Samantha live with endometriosis changed how I hear women’s pain. When someone you love has to explain her body again and again before a system responds, belief stops being a soft word. Belief becomes speed, care, dignity, and access. It becomes the difference between help arriving and another year disappearing. Getting out of the way does not mean men disappear. It means we stop mistaking our usual place at the center for proof that the center belongs to us. It means good men keep showing up while becoming less loyal to control and more willing to move authority, credit, protection, money, and opportunity toward people who have already earned the chance to lead. This book exists because private agreement is not enough. Women have heard “you are right” in hallways, kitchens, texts, and parking lots, then watched the formal room stay exactly the same. If men believe women should lead what comes next, that belief has to become visible in who holds the budget, who gets sponsored, who receives public credit, who is protected when the room gets difficult, and who gets to make the final call. > Women do not need more men who admire their courage after they spend it alone. ## Who it's for This book is for men who hold authority at work, at home, in faith communities, on boards, in public life, or simply in the rooms where other people have learned to wait for their approval. It is for leaders who genuinely support women and are willing to examine whether their systems, habits, sponsorship, and use of power match their stated values. It is also for women who want language for the gap between being praised as essential and being trusted with real authority. ## Who it's not for This is not a case for men disappearing, women being treated as a single category, standards being lowered, or employment decisions being made on sex alone. It is not a legal or human-resources manual. It is a personal and leadership argument for fair processes, honest accountability, wider pipelines, and authority that follows demonstrated ability instead of drifting toward familiar comfort. ## Questions it answers - How can I tell whether I truly share power or only invite input? - Why are men still trusted for potential while women are asked for more proof? - What is the difference between mentoring a woman and sponsoring her? - How does invisible labor shape homes, teams, and leadership? - What should a man do when another man is harming the room? - How do faith, modesty, and traditional gender roles shape what boys learn about authority? - What does good power look like when it is practical? - How do I get out of the way without abandoning responsibility? - What changes when women hold real decision rights, budgets, credit, and protection? ## Inside The book begins by examining the room itself through Who Put Us in Charge?, The Ego Problem, When Confidence Beats Competence, What Happens When Women Are Not Believed, Misogyny Learned to Sound Respectable, and The Modesty Trap. These chapters name the habits that let male authority look neutral even when women are doing much of the work and carrying much of the cost. The middle moves from diagnosis to consequence through The Hidden Economy of Invisible Labor, What Old Power Has Cost Us, Believe Her Body, Why Women’s Leadership Matters Now, Care, Listening, and the Work of Real Leadership, and The Men Who Say They Support Women. It asks whether support changes anything practical or simply makes men feel aligned with the right idea. The final movement focuses on action through Stop Calling It Empowerment If You Still Hold the Power, The Scarcity Trap, What Men Need to Unlearn, What Real Change Looks Like in Teams and Institutions, Building Rooms Women Don’t Have to Survive, What Good Power Looks Like, and Get Out of the Way. The afterword, discussion guide, and closing note to men keep the argument grounded in practice rather than performance. ## Before you start This book discusses sexism, misogyny, gendered power, religious control, purity and modesty culture, invisible labor, medical dismissal, endometriosis, reproductive health, rape, infertility, miscarriage, workplace inequity, harmful leadership, and institutional protection of men. It includes personal reflection and cultural commentary, not legal, medical, clinical, financial, employment, or human-resources advice. Some identifying details and situations have been changed, blended, or generalized to protect privacy. ## A note from me I did not write this book because I believe I have finished learning how to hold power well. I wrote it because I still hold power, still benefit from patterns I did not create, and still have a responsibility to notice what those patterns cost other people. I have received the benefit of the doubt. I have been trusted before I fully understood what that trust required. I have moved too fast and called it decisiveness. I have defended intent when I should have listened harder to impact. I have missed work at home because Kellie was carrying details I did not see. Guilt cannot repair those things by itself. Responsibility can change what I do next. I think about the women whose work built the ground beneath me, including Lidwin Dirne. I think about Kellie telling me the truth, Samantha inheriting a world that still asks women for too much proof, and the men Jacob and Cameron are becoming. I want my sons to understand that strength is not the ability to stay central. Strength can look like accountability, trust, protection, shared labor, and the courage to move power. Getting out of the way means knowing when I am standing somewhere I no longer need to stand. It means staying responsible while letting other people lead. It means asking what should grow because authority passed through my hands, not how long I can keep my name attached to it. I am still learning. I still get defensive. I still need correction. I still have to practice. That is not a reason to wait. It is the reason to begin where I am, with the power I actually hold. Paperback ISBN 9798199348430 · Hardcover ISBN 9798180606860 First edition, 2026 · Published by Mike Baker HQ ## Continue reading - Believe Her the First Time. Turns belief in women’s pain into practical responsibility for fathers, partners, leaders, and healthcare systems. - The Better Man Field Guide. Continues the work of responsibility, humility, repair, and becoming a man other people do not have to manage. - Human First. Explores leadership and connection that begin with the person rather than the title, role, or system. Print it, fill it in by hand, keep it somewhere you will actually see it. The Room MapThe Permission-Gate AuditSponsorship ReceiptsThe Invisible-Labor TransferBefore I Defend My Intent [Download the workbook (PDF) →](https://www.mikebakerhq.com/assets/downloads/get-out-of-the-way-workbook.pdf)