A Year in Books: What I Read and Learned in 2025

It’s now time for my second annual review of the books that have shaped my year. Welcome back.

If you joined me for last year's edition, you'll know that books are one of my greatest sources of learning, inspiration, and reflection. Writing this blog article is a great way for me to look back, and share what I've discovered with you.

As previously, I'll be highlighting my key takeaways from each read, along with recommendations on who might find each book most valuable. My hope is that this list sparks your curiosity and serves as a resource whenever you're looking for your next great read.

This year brought 13 books into my life, covering topics such as negotiation, cultural differences, team dynamics and the transformative power of getting outside. Whether you're seeking practical tools, fresh perspectives, or a little inspiration, there's something here for everyone.

So, make yourself comfortable and let’s dive in.

The Three That Stole the Show in 2025

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team (Patrick Lencioni)

An entertaining business fable revealing why even the most talented teams can struggle, with a practical framework outlining what it takes to build truly cohesive, high-performing teams.

This is for you if: You want to understand the foundational elements that drive genuine collaboration, accountability, and results and get to the heart of what makes teams succeed or fail.

How it changed me: I gained clarity on how vulnerability-based trust underpins everything else in teamwork. Without it, teams can't have honest conversations, engage in productive conflict, or hold each other accountable.

Great teams do not hold back with one another. They are unafraid to air their dirty laundry. They admit their mistakes, their weaknesses, and their concerns without fear of reprisal.

Never Split the Difference (Chris Voss)

Drawing from his experience as an FBI hostage negotiator, Voss shares proven and tested negotiation tactics that work in high-stakes situations and everyday conversations alike. This book completely reframed how I think about negotiation – not as confrontation, but as a process of discovery.

This is for you if: You want to become more effective in negotiations, difficult conversations, and any situation where understanding the other person's perspective is crucial to reaching an outcome.

How it changed me: I stopped fearing "no" and started seeing it as a conversation starter rather than an ending. I learned to get flaws out of the way early because hiding weaknesses doesn't build trust, it erodes it. Most importantly, I embraced that you can deeply understand someone's perspective without needing to agree with it, and that understanding is the bridge to conflict resolution.

Negotiation is not an act of battle; it's a process of discovery.

Making Business Child's Play (Joanna Jensen)

A honest account of what is takes to build a successful business based on Jensen’s own experience starting, growing and existing Childs Farm. The author’s lived experiences, contributions from well-renowned professionals across areas such as marketing, finance and law, and a ‘little black book’ of key contacts to support business owners along their journey makes this am incredibly valuable and practical resource.

This is for you if: You're building a business and want not only inspiration, but also sound advice from people who have walked that path and learnt through hard lessons along the way.

How it changed me: I took away three powerful principles which now inform how I make decisions in my business: choose your leadership team for complementarity not affinity; be selective about who you surround yourself with in life and business; and truly know your customers – you must know them better than your family.

Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity and cash is reality.

The Rest of My 2025 Book Stack

Dare to Lead (Brené Brown)

Building on her ground-breaking work on vulnerability, Brown provides a practical playbook for courageous leadership. This book dismantles the myth that leadership requires wearing an armour and encourages embracing vulnerability as a key enabler of innovation and change.

This is for you if: You want to develop your leadership capabilities (whether you have a formal leadership role or not) and learn how vulnerability, courage, and trust create stronger teams and organisations.

How it changed me: This read gave me the encouragement I needed to fully embrace vulnerability a leader rather than shy away from it. This accelerated significantly the trust-building process in my workplace relationships.

We need trust to be vulnerable, and we need to be vulnerable in order to build trust.

Hidden Potential (Adam Grant)

Grant challenges our assumptions about talent and achievement, showing that potential isn't fixed – it's something we can unlock through the right systems, mindsets, and support. This is a hopeful, evidence-based guide to growth and development.

This is for you if: You're interested in personal growth, talent development, or understanding how to help others (or yourself) achieve more than what was thought to be possible.

How it changed me: I took away that the key ingredient for sustained effort is ‘harmonious passion’, which is all about finding joy in the process itself, leading to flow states and sustained energy. Conversely, ‘obsessive compulsion’ turns work into a grinding chore, which can ultimately lead to burnout. I also learned to curate my feedback circle carefully and separate feedback from identity.

Without enjoyment, potential stays hidden.

The Culture Map (Erin Meyer)

Through clear frameworks and real-world examples, Meyer decodes how cultural differences shape communication, trust-building, and decision-making in global teams.

This is for you if: You work with international colleagues or clients and want to navigate cultural differences with awareness, respect, and effectiveness.

How it changed me: I have learnt that treating others as I want to be treated might not be the best approach when working in culturally diverse environments. The same words can motivate one person and deflate another, depending on cultural context.

People from all cultures believe in “constructive criticism”. Yet what is considered constructive in one culture may be viewed as destructive in another.

The Art of Gathering (Priya Parker)

Parker’s perspective aims at transforming how we think about meetings, events, and any time we bring people together. Through real-life stories and practical frameworks, she shows that purposeful gathering can create meaningful connection and real transformation.

This is for you if: You organise meetings, events, or gatherings of any kind and want to make them more meaningful, engaging, and effective.

How it changed me: I realised that too many meetings happen out of habit rather than intention, and identified five areas to consider when wanting to bring together groups of people: have a clear purpose, and revisit recurring meetings to ensure they're still relevant; be an intentional host who sets the tone and creates focus; curate the right attendees; design for engagement by using meetings for collaboration and debate, not just status updates; and create simple, meaningful norms that transform participation.

Gathering—done well—can transform our lives and the people we touch.

Originals (Adam Grant)

The book unpacks how non-conformists move the world forward, revealing what it takes to champion new ideas and challenge the status quo and celebrating the courage to be different.

This is for you if: You want to become more innovative, challenge conventional thinking, or support others in bringing original ideas to life.

How it changed me: I learned that default systems aren't always the best systems – questioning "that's how we've always done it" is the first step toward innovation. I also saw that procrastination through a different lens, as something that can fuel creativity – sometimes the best ideas need time to incubate.

To become original, you have to try something new, which means accepting some measure of risk.

Moral Ambition (Rutger Bregman)

The average full-time worker will spend 80,000 hours at their job. Bregman’s mission with this book is to encourage us to reflect on whether we may be doing enough during this time. This book will definitely challenge you to think about the impact you are making to society and the wider world through your daily actions, and reflect on how you can leave a positive legacy.

This is for you if: You're interested in human nature, social change, and are not afraid to be challenged around how much you might be doing with your limited time on this planet.

How it changed me: This read made me pause a lot to reflect on what I could do differently to make my life more meaningful, even if through small changes.

Yes, words matter, and to some extent they even shape our reality. But in the end, what you do matters far more.

The Theory and Practice of Relational Coaching (Simon Cavicchia and Maria Gilbert)

This book explores the relational approach to coaching, emphasising that transformation happens through the coaching relationship itself, not just through techniques or models. It's a thoughtful, deep dive into the dynamics between coach and client.

This is for you if: You're a coach or practitioner wanting to deepen your understanding of relational dynamics and how the coaching relationship itself becomes the vehicle for change.

How it changed me: I solidified my intuition around how the coaching relationship itself (not just the techniques I use) is where transformation happens. Paying attention to the here-and-now dynamics – what's happening between me and my client in the moment – reveals valuable insights that no assessment tool can capture.

Every coach-coachee-context constellation is a unique universe to be collaboratively explored.

Executive Coaching (Catherine Sandler)

A comprehensive guide to coaching senior leaders, addressing the unique challenges, pressures, and opportunities that come with working at the highest organisational levels.

This is for you if: You coach or aspire to coach senior leaders, or if you're interested in understanding the unique dynamics of leadership at the executive level.

How it changed me: I delved deeper into the unique pressures senior leaders face: isolation, visibility, and competing stakeholder demands that most people never see. The best coaching interventions at the highest levels of organisations consider the whole system, not just the individual.

All individuals move back and forth along the spectrum between their functional and dysfunctional forms of leadership.

Coaching Outdoors (Lindsay West)

All about the benefits of taking coaching outside and using nature not just as a pleasant backdrop but an active participant in the coaching process. This book combines practical guidance with research on the benefits of outdoor coaching.

This is for you if: You're a coach curious about incorporating nature into your practice, or anyone interested in how environment shapes thinking, creativity, and wellbeing.

How it changed me: I learned about how nature can actively supports the coaching process. Getting outside breaks established patterns and opens new perspectives in ways that staying in a room simply can't. Movement and fresh air enhance creative thinking and emotional processing, and the natural environment can hold difficult emotions while creating psychological safety. Beyond individual benefits, I also learned about organisational impacts: better decision-making emerges from improved cognitive function, performance strengthens, and retention increases while absenteeism decreases when employees are healthy and happy. This has inspired me to incorporate outdoor coaching sessions whenever possible.

Coaching in outdoor settings can facilitate an opening of new forms of knowing within us.

The Trading Game (Gary Stevenson)

Stevenson's memoir takes readers inside the world of high-stakes trading, revealing how the financial system works and who it works for.

This is for you if: You're interested in understanding the underlying dynamics of financial systems, or curious about the human cost of success in high-pressure environments.

How it changed me: This book made me reflect (once again) about how individual success doesn't mean the whole system works, if the system itself is dysfunctional. This has made me more conscious of the systems I participate in and more willing to question structures that benefit some at the expense of others.

I'd believed it when the teachers back at school had told me: study hard and do well in your exams and you will get a good job. I had been an idiot. I had been a fool.

That's all from me now. I hope you've found at least one book here that sparks your curiosity, but more than that, I hope this gave you a closer look at who I am and what shapes my thinking. For me, books don't just sit on the my shelf – they change how I see the world, how I approach challenges, and inevitably, how I show up in my work with clients. Every book leaves its mark: small shifts in perspective, new ways of seeing old problems, moments of recognition that influence the coach I'm becoming. We're never quite the same after the final page, and that's exactly as it should be.