Break the Silence, Reclaim Your Voice, and Rise in Leadership.
Too many women rise through the ranks of corporate life carrying the weight of experiences they've never been allowed to name. The pressure to be competent, composed, agreeable, and endlessly resilient creates a silent barrier that keeps talented career women stuck-especially when they're ready to step into senior leadership. Taboo Topics: Things Women Should Talk About, But Don't brings those hidden conversations into the light.
Women navigating director-level and executive-track roles face challenges no one names out loud, even though they shape how women are judged, promoted, and perceived. These aren't personality problems or confidence gaps. They're cultural and structural realities that shape leadership potential-and they rarely appear in traditional leadership books, career guides, or women's empowerment manuals.
Drawing from years of coaching career women inside large organizations, Nicole Johnston offers a candid, grounded look at the real issues holding women back. She brings language, clarity, and relief to the pressures women experience but rarely discuss, and she shows how naming these truths can unlock stronger leadership, clearer boundaries, and sustainable professional growth.
Inside this book, you'll explore five core taboo topics:
- The hidden rules of executive presence-and why women are evaluated differently.
- The emotional labor tax that drains confidence and performance.
- The pressure to overdeliver and how it sabotages strategic visibility.
- The guilt, burnout, and internalized expectations women quietly carry.
- The real conversations women need to have to move from capable to promotable.
If you're a woman who has worked hard, led well, and still feels unseen or stalled, this book offers the honesty, validation, and strategy you've been missing. Taboo Topics gives you the clarity to move forward, the courage to speak up, and the confidence to lead at the level you're meant for.
Industry Reviews
"Taboo Topics couldn't be more timely. Essential reading for any businesswoman, manager, or emerging leader ready to communicate with confidence, set boundaries at work, and step fully into her power."
-Sage Lavine, Best-Selling Author of Women Rocking Business
"A practical and thought-provoking exploration of the often-unspoken challenges women navigate in their daily lives. The clarity, accessibility, and practicality of the advice make it a valuable read. I would recommend this book to women seeking to better understand and navigate the often-invisible demands placed upon them, particularly those striving to balance multiple roles and responsibilities."
-NetGalley Review
"This book is really good for career women who feel stuck or tired at work. It gives real tips like how to protect your energy, stop doing too much extra work, and deal with unfair feedback. If you're a woman who wants to grow in your career, this book is worth reading."
-NetGalley Review
"Johnston has spent years in corporate leadership and executive coaching, and the book bears the mark of that background. She writes as someone who has been in the room. She knows the language of organizations, but she also knows the language of female exasperation. Johnston is writing for women in the thick of things - women who are senior enough to know the workplace is not neutral, tired enough to know the body keeps score, and busy enough to appreciate a sentence that gets to the point. An ambitious, humane and genuinely serviceable book whose reach occasionally exceeds its formal grip, but whose best pages make the hidden architecture of women's exhaustion visible with force, warmth and hard-won authority."
-NetGalley Review
