Breaking Orbit
Some leaders rise by standing tall. She rose by falling hard.
Published on 18. May 2026
Book
Hardback
262 pages
978-1-0687737-4-7 (ISBN)
Description
Navi Sol gets the promotion everyone says she's earned. She just never asked for it. Now she's leading a deep-space starship built on systems, data, and expertise - and learning fast that the hardest part of leadership is not the responsibility. It's who you feel you have to become.
Under pressure, Navi reshapes herself into what she thinks the system rewards: polished, decisive, and just emotionally distant enough to look "in control." On paper, it works. On the deck, it quietly starts to fall apart.
When a high-risk mission hits, Navi backs someone she trusts completely: a loyal, eager "yes man" who would follow her anywhere. The team has doubts. The data raises flags. The warning signs are there. But speed, optics, and the need to prove herself win out. And the cost is something she can't undo. What follows is not a tidy leadership lesson. It's the moment every leader fears: when trust breaks, when the team goes quiet, and you realize the problem is not the mission. It's you.
This is a leadership story for people who are tired of leadership books that pretend pressure is optional.
Fictional, but grounded in the very real challenges leaders face every day:The pressure to look certain even when you are not
The quiet pull to reward loyalty instead of capability
The moment a team stops speaking up, and you do not notice right away
The distance you build to feel "in control"
How hard it is to rebuild trust once it is gone
If you have ever stepped into leadership and felt yourself changing, this story will feel uncomfortably familiar. Because we do not learn leadership from textbooks. We learn it from each other. From shared experiences. From real stories. From the moments that do not go to plan. And sometimes, the people who never chased leadership are the ones who discover what it truly means.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Ireland
Dimensions
Height: 209 mm
Width: 132 mm
Thickness: 19 mm
Weight
410 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-0687737-4-7 (9781068773747)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Dara Kiernan spent over 20 years performing & promoting stand-up comedy while leading high-pressure operations across public and private sectors. That unusual combination taught him what most leadership books miss: how to read a room, adapt in real time, and stay composed when the script falls apart.Over 25 years, he has led large-scale transformations - including national COVID-19 contact tracing with Ireland's Health Service Executive - and now works with organisations like Vodafone, Dublin City Council, and The Beacon Hospital to align people, process, and technology for measurable performance gains.He is also the author of the US best-selling book Freefall: Leadership Lessons from the Skies, where he draws on his experience learning to skydive to explore how leaders handle fear, risk, and decision-making under pressure. Dara is known for his ability to take real-life experiences - often far outside the boardroom - and translate them into practical, relatable leadership lessons that resonate in the corporate world.Dara holds a Master's Degree in Financial Services, is Lean Six Sigma Green Belt certified, is a qualified trainer and an international public speaker. He also created and hosts The Leadership Lunch, a free online space where leaders share the hard-won lessons that make leadership feel less lonely - and a lot more human.His belief is simple: the most important leadership skills are not learned in training rooms. They are forged through relationships, uncertainty, mistakes, and the moments when you're expected to lead... without a script.Dara lives in Wexford, Ireland, with his incredibly patient wife - who has somehow tolerated his two-year "relationship" with a fictional character named Navi - and his young son, who arrived just as Dara turned 50 and promptly redefined everything he thought he knew about energy levels, priorities, and sleep.He has never been more fulfilled.He's just not entirely sure he's ever been this tired.