Al Lunsford thinks we are seeing a role reversal in which the influence of religious professionals is waning as the spiritual influence of ordinary workers grows. The vanguard of biblical spirituality is people who incarnate the good news of God’s kingdom by their lives in the marketplace.

We only need to open a newspaper to find that our relationally designed world is fragmented and frayed. Distrust shadows our business dealings and, in this moment, our entire economy. News stories about the current economic crisis lead us to believe the problem is a lack of confidence in the financial markets.

What can leaders do to defuse the current anger and lessen its likelihood in the future? Robert J. Bies and Thomas M. Tripp say: "The answer is to treat people fairly and, when that fails, rebuild the trust." If that sounds too simple, they say, "It is simple, and it should be basic (like decency). This is why, when the cynics and critics say that these are just warmed-over recommendations from the past, we reply “Go back to basics; we already know what works.” In fact, what got us in this mess were leaders ignoring those tried-and-true basics.

In the current economic crisis, people who did nothing wrong are being punished for the behavior of people who did nothing right — unless we count the relentless accumulation of as much as possible as fast as possible by every means possible. Clearly, mistakes were made... Now there’s nothing to do but the hard work of rebuilding trust.

Glenn McMahan, our man in Brazil, takes only cold comfort from the knowledge that the corrupt will eventually fall into pits of their own digging. Is that enough? What benefit does integrity bring to a person? What reward is there for honesty?

Jim Hancock joins former Worthwhile Magazine columnist Curt Rosengren's beef with Big Advertising. We see what you're doing with all that You're-Not-Good-Enough marketing... Now cut it out!

If there were scandalous goings-on behind Tiger Woods' one-car accident, we're not likely to find out the details. To which Jim Hancock can only say, "So what?" Because, honestly, don't we all have plenty to worry about behind our own closed doors?

It's not so much what a young manager experiences in his or her first job as the take-away lessons in leadership. Geoff Finch recalls on-the-job learning about following, leading and becoming a leader.

How we talk about our customers makes a difference in how we serve them...right? What would be the affect on customer loyalty if what we said about them in private became transparent?

Microsoft routinely delivers software once a month, on Patch Tuesday. When someone hacked a Microsoft digital rights management application, the company issued a patch in three days. Why the difference? Customers think they know...

Is business competition unbiblical? An example from the ultra-competitive National Basketball Association may shed some surprising ideas that praising your competitors may be good for you and your business.

People are either glad our companies are in town (county, state, region, nation, planet) or they're not. What are you doing to ensure that your neighbors will stand up for you because they're glad you're there?

Jim Hancock looks back: "The marketplace is certainly more fickle—and getting killed in the line of business even more a possibility—than when Peter Kim spoke with Fast Company in the magazine's very first issue..,"

Brand Autopsy reminds us that once upon a time great companies built their business on an ironclad guarantee of customer satisfaction.

Harvard Management Update offers Five Guidelines for Using Statistics, which InsideWork dutifully passes along with certain embellishments...

In 1939 C.S. Lewis said: "Christianity does not simply replace our natural life and substitute a new one; it is rather a new organisation which exploits, to its own supernatural ends, these natural materials."

Chip Toth of LeadersInspire shares a vivid lesson that he and his clients learned about authentically living out values at the curb of O'Hare Airport.

Bradley J. Moore respects business leaders who bring their faith to their workplace. But advertising it with a little fish on a keychain? Or making it part of the business name? What exactly does that buy them?

David Wooldridge writes about British golfer, Brian Davis, who self-reported an infraction and lost over $400,000 and the chance to win his first tournament. Would leaders from Goldman Sachs have reported such an infraction on the course?