David Horsager really knows his stuff. As the CEO of Trust Edge Leadership, Trust Expert in Residence at High Point University, and a Wall Street Journal bestselling author, he’s perfected a simple but effective strategy divided into an eight-part corporate philosophy he’s christened the Pillars of Trust. The origins of said philosophy are best summarized in a personal quote of Horsager’s on the record – “People trust what they are empowered to be a real part of, where they feel that they are recognized and valued both as employees and as human beings.” In the spirit of that, expertly outlined in his latest book Trusted Leader: 8 Pillars That Drive Results, Horsager provides us with an extensive storyline serving as a humanization of otherwise complex and sometimes broad conceptual terminologies.

WEBSITE: https://trustedge.com/

Through the eyes of a fictitious protagonist named ‘Ethan’, Horsager is able to aptly communicate not only keenly observed and evidenced approaches to realizing entrepreneurial aspirations, but also the arguably ‘compassionate leadership’ principles one has the responsibility of instilling when ‘Ethan’ – and by association the theoretical reader – has reached such aspirations. Horsager’s smarts, however, are never to take the focal point of the ‘why’ factors out of the direct equation for the reader. Cognizant of the practically mandatory egocentricity it takes to realize lofty goals, particularly in exclusionary fields of business, he makes the point that said compassionate leadership principles primarily benefit the boss, as much as they serve as moral incentives on behalf of the worker.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: https://davidhorsager.com/meet-david/

Trust, Horsager highlights, is the number one priority – and should be the number one conceptual word – factoring into the entirety of how one runs a corporation, business, or other form of establishment requiring hierarchy. Arguably it’s the visceral opposite of the traditional, capitalist model. Each member of the operation needs to feel a sense of fairness and equality, for the sake of pursuing the company’s stated goal.

AMAZON: https://www.amazon.com/Trusted-Leader-Pillars-Drive-Results/dp/1523092998

Thus, while Trusted Leader doesn’t shy away from articulations of veteran savviness in achieving one’s professional dreams, its primary angle – and arguably, not to be sentimental heart – is how it breaks down step-by-step effective communicative techniques to maintain said trust. It’s a nice change from the colder, brassier feeling of climbing the corporate ladder, a particularly quintessential image being the Reagan-era Working Girl industrial jungle. All in all a solid read, whose winning formula is helping the reader decipher universal concepts everyone can understand within the complex layering of this thing called success.

Kendall Townsend