
Results
Winner
CORE Leadership: A Four-Step Framework to Lead Yourself, Grow Your Influence, and Amplify Your Impact
Miki Feldman Simon
Most leadership approaches focus on how to lead others. CORE Leadership starts from a different premise: leadership starts with leading yourself. It helps leaders create a clear vision of the person and leader they want to be and gives them practical tools to put that vision into action. Through the four-step CORE framework, readers clarify what matters to them, translate it into everyday behaviors, recognize where they have choice, and evaluate the impact they are having. Readers have shared how the framework has helped them clarify their purpose, become more aware of their impact, see choices they hadn’t previously recognized, and make intentional changes in how they lead and live. As leaders become more intentional and exercise greater agency over how they show up, the impact extends beyond them, strengthening relationships, creating healthier teams and workplaces, and positively affecting the people they lead, work with, and live with.
Winner
Cue the Lifeboat: A Choose-Your-Current Guide to Get Your Ship Together
Christiane Palpant
Cue the Lifeboat is the “Choose-Your-Current” guide for navigating career uncertainty instead of avoiding it. Christiane Palpant spent two decades as a Fortune 500 executive and now teaches university students navigating their first career chapters. Her book is for anyone standing at the edge, unsure where to go but certain they can't stay put: recent graduates, career pivoters, anyone facing a "now what?" moment. Readers become the main character in real adventures, from midnight sailing regattas in Hawaii to business deals in Buenos Aires. At the end of every chapter, they decide which adventure comes next based on what they need most: finding their voice, dealing with setbacks, or changing course. Each story closes with a Propeller Plan of reflection prompts and action steps that turn the adventure into momentum. Readers gain the confidence to navigate uncertainty one choice at a time and chart a course that's truly their own.
Winner
Driven by Desire: The Path to Unstoppable Success
JW Radford
Driven by Desire: The Path to Unstoppable Success helps people turn ambition into meaningful action. It shows readers how to identify what they truly want, develop the mindset and discipline needed to pursue it, and keep moving forward despite setbacks, fear, or failure. Drawing on real-life lessons of adversity, resilience, and achievement, the book emphasizes personal accountability, intentional decision-making, and consistent action. Rather than defining success only by money or status, Driven by Desire challenges readers to create their own definition of success and build a practical path toward it. Ultimately, the book delivers a powerful message: your circumstances may influence where you start, but your desire, choices, and determination can change where you finish.
Finalist
Route 116 to Sonoma: How Your Skills, Knowledge, & Behaviours Can Determine Your Journey to Success
Ross McWilliam
Route 116 To Sonoma is a compassionate and essential roadmap for navigating the various stages of life and career. It offers insights for those starting their journey, those facing burnout or anyone seeking a renewed sense of purpose. Using a blend of narrative questioning, metrics and video methods, this transformational journey provides key insights into a wide range of knowledge, skills and behaviours, that will enable you to leverage the best version of yourself, converting your aspirational dreams and hopes into reality.
If you engage honestly and authentically with Route 116 To Sonoma, you may thrive and reach your own haven, your Sonoma. Beyond this, you may well find yourself laying the foundations for a personal living legacy that extends far beyond the present moment. Since its publication in 2025, the book has been the catalyst for further engagement via face to face / online keynotes and seminars, creating a significant impact across people and organizations.
