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  • Published: 23 September 2025
  • ISBN: 9781785043208
  • Imprint: Vermilion
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 448
  • RRP: $49.99

Strong Ground

The Lessons of Daring Leadership, the Tenacity of Paradox and the Wisdom of the Human Spirit





#1 New York Times bestselling author Brené Brown returns with an urgent call to reimagine the essentials of courageous leadership

#1 New York Times bestselling author Brené Brown returns with an urgent call to reimagine the essentials of courageous leadership. In a time when uncertainty runs deep and bluster, hubris and even cruelty are increasingly framed as acceptable leadership, Brown delivers practical, actionable insights that illuminate the mindsets and skill sets essential to reclaiming focus and driving growth through connection, discipline and accountability.

Over the past six years, Brené Brown, along with a global community of coaches and facilitators, has taken more than 150,000 leaders in 45 countries through her Dare to Lead courage-building work. In Strong Ground, Brown shares the lessons from these experiences along with wisdom from other thinkers. This is a vital playbook for everyone from senior leaders developing and executing complex strategies to Gen Z-ers entering and navigating turbulent work environments. It is also an unflinching assessment of what happens when we continue to perpetuate the falsehood that performance and wholeheartedness are mutually exclusive.

With equal amounts of optimism and caution about AI, Brown writes, 'I hear a lot of experts trying to soothe people’s anxiety about the pace of technological change by offering platitudes like, What makes us human will ensure our relevance. This is dangerous simply because, right now, we’re not especially good at what makes us human. We’re not hardwired for this level of uncertainty, and many of us feel as if the constant need to self-protect is driving the humanity right out of us. This is why organisational transformation today must foster deep connection, deep thinking and deep collaboration. We need the courage to lead people in a way that honours and protects the wisdom of the human spirit.'

Brown offers a broad assessment of the skill sets and mindsets we need moving forward, including the capacity for respectful and difficult conversations, increased productive urgency and smart prioritisation rather than reactivity, strategic risk-taking, paradoxical thinking and situational and anticipatory awareness skills. She identifies the toughest skill set as the discipline, humility and confidence to unlearn and relearn.

Brown writes, 'Individuals and organisations are building new muscles. Finding our strong ground — that athletic stance — is the only thing that can provide both unwavering stability in a maelstrom of uncertainty and a platform for the fast, explosive change that the world is demanding.'

  • Published: 23 September 2025
  • ISBN: 9781785043208
  • Imprint: Vermilion
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 448
  • RRP: $49.99

About the author

Brené Brown

Brené Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston, where she holds the Huffington Foundation-Brené Brown Endowed Chair at the Graduate College of Social Work. She is also a visiting professor in management at the University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business. Brown has spent the past two decades studying courage, vulnerability, shame and empathy, and is the author of five #1 New York Times bestsellers: The Gifts of Imperfection, Daring Greatly, Rising Strong, Braving the Wilderness and Dare to Lead, which is the culmination of a seven-year study on courage and leadership. With Tarana Burke, she co-edited the bestselling anthology You Are Your Best Thing: Vulnerability, Shame Resilience and the Black Experience. She hosts the Unlocking Us and Dare to Lead podcasts, and her TEDx talk, "The Power of Vulnerability", is one of the top five most-viewed TED talks in the world with more than 50 million views. Her Netflix special, The Call to Courage, is the first filmed lecture by a researcher on the streaming service. Brown lives in Houston, Texas, with her husband, Steve. They have two children, Ellen and Charlie.

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Praise for Strong Ground

Peter Walker has written the book I wanted to write. It should be compulsory reading for anyone in a decision making role. This might seem a sweeping statement but when you see the diverse and positive impact more cycling could have on our lives - cyclist or not - you'll understand.

Chris Boardman

Stacked with stats and filled with stories, this book is as exhilarating as a clear stretch of highway. If we are at a turning point for cycling in big cities, this book is it.

Jeremy Vine

Where cycling is considered normal, and where it's done by 25 percent of more of the population, people are healthier, happier and richer, demonstrates Bike Nation.

Carlton Reid, Bike Biz

Peter Walker may just have written the most convincing argument ever seen for 'how cycling can save the world'. Walker provides invaluable information on every discussion that you are likely to encounter when making the case for cycling. This book should be sufficient to convince rational people that we would all benefit from a society that is less centred on motor vehicles and more open to the benefits of cycling

Richard Peploe, Road.cc

It's the sort of book best read with a highlighter pen as there lots of different quotes, facts and interviews that you'll want to refer back to again and again. If you're involved in cycle campaigning, this book is an excellent introduction to new members of your group to help get them up to speed. It's also a powerful read for transport planners, councillors, MPs, council officers and local influencers. Anyone with even a semi-open mind in making the town they live in work better for everyone (including drivers) will find this an illuminating read. I highly recommend this book

Girodilento

This is not just a book for cycle campaigners. It will help everyone who cycles to understand how they are part of something that has the potential to change our nation for the better

Victoria Hazel, Cycle

This is a very timely book. Peter Walker is a political columnist at the Guardian, and when it comes to writing in a calm, fact-heavy tone that still manages to hold your attention, there are few that can match him. He's also been one of the newspaper's regular writers on cycling for several years now, and for this book he clearly had a wealth of material to draw on. Overall this is a great summary of the challenges facing cycling, as well as the opportunities it presents to transform our cities and our lives. It's accessible enough to be read by anyone, regardless of their knowledge of cycling, and I'd happily drop a copy in every town hall or transport authority's office in the UK, like a sustainable transport version of a Gideon Bible. It's also imbued with an empowering sense of optimism, particularly around the recent developments for cycling in London. We have a huge amount of work to do if we want to turn cycling back into an attractive, safe form of everyday transport in the 21st century. But this book sets out the why and the how as elegantly as anything I've read

Antony de Heveningham, Singletrack Magazine