The best books about why ethical leadership and trust create amazing outcomes in life and business

In this groundbreaking biography, David Maraniss captures all of football great Vince Lombardi: the myth, the trusted man, his game, and his God. His leadership of the Green Bay Packers to five world championships in nine seasons is the most storied period in NFL history. Lombardi became a living legend, a symbol to many of trusted leadership, discipline, perseverance, and teamwork, and to others, of an obsession with winning. In When Pride Still Mattered, Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Maraniss captures the myth and the man, football, God, and country in a thrilling biography destined to become an American classic.

Everyone has their own opinions on who an Ethical leader and Visionary leader is, to me a great leader is someone who builds trust, credibility, and respect for both you and the organization and guides you to success. I feel Lombardi is both a visionary and an ethical leader. The reasons why I feel Lombardi is a visionary and ethical leader, are directly tied to his ability to motivate and lead his team during tough racial times. Some of the ethical leadership traits he possessed, were professionalism, self-control, humility, moral courage, and personal discipline. We all know Lombardi was a successful coach, won the first two Super Bowls, and led the worst team in the league to the best team, but what you don’t know is some of the ethical dilemmas and ethical traps, he dealt with as a coach during the 1960s.

During this time there was lots of racism in the US, and it was no different on the football field. He made it clear he would not fall for the ethical trap of ethical relativism or worry over Image. He went against the society norm and told coaches and players they would be thrown off the team, if they displayed behaviors of racism. The public didn’t always agree with this kind of thinking, but he was never worried about his image, and was only concerned about making the best ethical and organizational decisions for his team. As a coach and role model, he insisted to his team and the public that there were no barriers on the team, and each player and coach were equal, both racially and socially. This behavior he displayed helped build a unified team with trust-based leadership.

Ray Dalio is the founder of Bridgewater Associates, the largest hedge fund in the world. In Principles: Life and Work, he shares the guiding principles powering his success and Bridgewater’s. Principles is a manual for rational thinking. The main theme is that finding trust is the best way to make decisions, and that ego, emotion, and blind spots prevent you from discovering the truth. Dalio shares the foundation of trust, why we often think of trust as something we inject into a relationship. Not so. Trust is an output built on something much deeper.

In my experience, both as a leader and in watching countless other leaders, what I have found is that toughness is the result of being able to deal with and survive the scrutiny of transparency, and loyalty is what you earn from others when they trust that you are fully exposing yourself and your agenda.

Leaders, or for that matter people in general, who are opaque make it difficult for others to connect with them and almost never earn the loyalty of others. They engender distrust and create the perception of a hidden agenda. These leaders can ultimately lead only through fear and intimidation. That may work for a while, but good luck trying to sustain it. And whatever loyalty seems to exist is only being feigned by those who are dependent on these leaders until they can find a reason, any reason, to go elsewhere.

In the book, Dalio calls it "radical transparency." This is the sort of transparency that puts a leader under the bright lights 24/7. In these cases, you can't count on position or status to hide from scrutiny that exposes your flaws and failings. You need to own them and be accountable for them, which equals trust.

Jordan Peterson wrote this extraordinary book, which was among Amazon’s top 20 best-selling books. In 12 Rules for Life, Peterson argues that there is a right and wrong way to conduct your life. In contrast, he rejects the ambiguity...challenges and discusses trust and why we need ethical leadership.

Many of us are in the predicament where we know we need to trust some people, but we have a hard time doing so because we do not think enough of them are trustworthy. We have to be selective in choosing whom to trust, no doubt. However, trust, as Peterson argues in his book the 12 Rules for Life, always takes courage, because whenever we choose to trust anyone, we open ourselves up to being hurt.

Leaders know where they’re going. The first thing to lead is the right direction. True leadership takes risks to manifest trust You communicate with people. You develop trust. Fooling people for a long time isn’t possible. There is a value that exists where you’re going. 

Leadership is tough to implement but, it yields. People trust you are the centre of Leadership. Intelligence and consciousness are associated with it. Resettlement shows your immaturity. You get mature and do something ethical.

Put no trust in a neighbor; have no confidence in a friend; guard the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your arms; for the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man’s enemies are the men of his own house.

People who trust are naïve. And naïve is not a virtue, it’s a fault. It’s partly a fault because if you’re naïve, and if you run into someone who’s malevolent–including you–they may do you incalculable damage, so that you may never recover. So that’s not a good thing, you don’t want to be naïve.

If you’re not naïve, that means you’ve been burned once or twice or three or four times. You know, once you’ve been burned in that manner, then it’s hard to trust, because you think, “Why would I trust you–or me, for that matter–knowing full well that I can be betrayed?"

In The 48 Laws of Power, Robert Greene, an outstanding book that will no doubt remain a classic for a very long time. Those who wonder why it is that certain sub-cultures in the business world, Hollywood, the entertainment industry, politics, finance appear to be incurably cynical, amoral, unethical, corrupt, and untrustworthy would do well to read it, provided they are able to resist being persuaded by its brutal philosophy.

Greene, who has other similarly-oriented best-selling books on business success, is considered a guru by the music industry, and has been embraced with special enthusiasm by hip-hop moguls. What is remarkable about his 48 laws is how completely they discard all ethical virtues, as if fairness, honesty, integrity, responsibility, respect, and trustworthiness were irrelevant to the topic of power.

In fact, the five most important laws of power are… You must prove your worthiness to hold power by your manner of acquiring it. Power without competence, wisdom, and goodwill leads to tragedy. Do not use power to restrict the welfare, autonomy, freedom, and pleasure of others, but to enhance them. Regard power as a means, not an end. When retaining power itself becomes the goal, it is time to surrender it.

Naturally, Greene ignores all of these. Of his so-called “laws,” the majority (about 28) endorse unethical conduct; the rest are ethically neutral, describing pragmatic actions, not ethical ones

James Kerr, in his book Legacy reveals the simple secrets of success behind some of the world's elite business, sports, and military organizations. He explores ethical leadership, trust, and individual initiative and what drives the best teams to extraordinary results; a relentless focus on trust, ethical behavior, and leadership styles, excellence, a collective commitment to an 'uncommon cause,' a high degree of autonomy, with clear, candid and compelling communication, an emphasis on individual accountability, integrity, and genuine humility, underpinned by a climate in which 'leaders create leaders'.

The book is extremely insightful. It is about leadership, decision-making, and self-mastery. The lessons of this book can be perfectly applied to personal life and business environment.

Trust-based leadership — know thyself, keep to the truth. If you succumb to peer pressure and do things because others want you, you will be cut off. Be genuine, stay true to yourself, and be honest with your environment. Adopting the behaviors and values of others will often conflict with what got you there in the first place. Leaders need to create an environment that encourages safe conflict, honesty, and integrity, in which people genuinely know one another.

As well as small, elite teams, Kerr addresses the specific challenges faced by larger, more diverse organizations today: including the impact that female leaders can have in previously male-dominated environments, the challenges of engaging millennials, the shift from a transactional towards a transformative leadership style, personal leadership, ethics, trust and integrity, marginal gains and incremental improvement, values and vision-setting, and resilience in adversity.

A brilliant book combining anecdotes from those directly involved in the All Blacks’ success, to quotes and stories from some of the most successful coaches and people involved in sport.