The Integrity Dividend by Tony Simons

The first thing I do when I get a book is flip open to the inside flap of the dust cover and read the summary. I like to get a fifteen second feel for the book before I dive right in.

The first line on the dust jacket read: “Corporate and government scandals continue to deepen our mistrust of leaders.” Tony Simons, author of the The Integrity Dividend and an associate professor of management and organizational behavior at the School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University, hit the nail on the head with that line. While the book was probably influenced by the Enron and similar scandals, corporate greed in financial companies and weak governmental oversight (or straight up looking the other way) the last five or ten years has combined to create an economic maelstrom the likes of which haven’t been seen in decades. Add it all together and you get an environment where employees may be distrustful of their management. Are the leaders of my firm focusing on the quick buck to keep shareholders happy or are they interested in building a long term future? Richard Fuld, ex-CEO of Lehman Brothers, earned half a billion dollars in cash between 2000 and 2008. Lehman is now bankrupt, leaving many employees with empty retirement accounts.

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