2026 AAWL Annual Meeting Materials
Intentional Leadership: Why Women are Leaders and How to Cultivate an Executive Presence
The Panelists’ Recommended Reading List
Professional Success:
★ Likable Badass: How Women Get the Success They Deserve by Alison R. Fragile, PhD
→ Explains how women can thread the needle of kindness and competence in the workplace, earn credit for their accomplishments, negotiate better, and navigate complex office politics without losing the goodwill of their peers.
★ Start with Yourself: A New Vision for Work & Life by Emma Grede
→ Grede offers tangible and applicable-right-now solutions to create an overall system of thought to manage emotions, clarify ideas, and illuminate the right next step—while always staying positive.
★ The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups by Daniel Coyle
→ Coyle combines cutting-edge science, on-the-ground insight, and practical ideas for action to offer a roadmap for creating an environment where innovation flourishes, problems get solved, and expectations are exceeded.
★ The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg
→ The neuroscience behind why we do what we do, which can be rewired to achieve greater success.
★ The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
→ Exploring how our most memorable positive moments are dominated by four elements – elevation, insight, pride, and connection – and if we embrace these elements, we can conjure more moments that matter.
Intentional Leadership:
★ Strong Ground: The Lessons of Daring Leadership, the Tenacity of Paradox, and the Wisdom of the Human Spirit by Brené Brown
→ How to reclaim focus and drive growth through connection, discipline, and accountability.
★ Dare to Lead: Brave Work, Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts. by Brené Brown
→ How to cultivate braver, more daring leaders, and embed the value of courage in your culture.
★ Playing Big: Practical Wisdom for Women Who Want to Speak Up, Create, and Lead by Tara Mohr
→ Provides real, practical tools to help women quiet self-doubt, identify their callings, “unhook” from praise and criticism, unlearn counterproductive good girl habits, and begin taking bold action.
To Transition Roles:
★ What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful by Marshall Goldsmith and Mark Reiter
→ Individual execution wins promotion, but executive leadership demands shifting.
★ From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life by Arthur C. Brooks
→ Shifting from high-striving “doing” to high- impact “advising” by refocusing on certain priorities and habits such as deep wisdom, detachment from empty rewards, connection and service to others, and spiritual progress.
★ Imagine it Forward: Courage, Creativity, and the Power of Change by Beth Comstock
→ Confronting change calls for the courage to defy convention, go around corporate gatekeepers when necessary, and reinvent what is possible in order to navigate mess, tap disrupters, and build ecosystems in the leadership role.
★ The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter, Updated and Expanded by Michael Watkins
→ When moving into a new executive role, diagnose context quickly, secure early wins, and align with a plan.
For Inspiration:
★ Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience by Brené Brown
→ Covers Brown’s research into the experiences that make us who we are and how it shapes the cultural conversation and helps define what it means to be courageous with our lives.
★ Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brené Brown
→ Dispelling the cultural myth that vulnerability is weakness; vulnerability is, in truth, our most accurate measure of courage.
★ The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown
→ Effective daily practices that bolster the ten guideposts to wholehearted, authentic living.
★ I Thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn’t): Telling the Truth about Perfectionism, Inadequacy, and Power by Brené Brown
→ Explores an important truth: Our imperfections are what connect us to each other and to our humanity.
★ Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone by Brené Brown
→ Brown argues that we’re experiencing a spiritual crisis of disconnection, and introduces four practices of true belonging that challenge everything we believe about ourselves and each other.
★ A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II by Sonia Purnell
→ An overlooked female American spy outmaneuvered the Gestapo to lead resistance.
★ Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
→ A clever octopus helps a grieving widow heal and reconnect (fiction).
★ 101 Essays That Will Change the Way You Think by Brianna Wiest
→ Essays that cover the full terrain of what it means to think well and live consciously.