“Radical Candor puts building good relationships at the center of a boss’s job,” Scott said. “In fact, my favorite lines in the whole book are these: ‘Relationships are core to your job. If you think that you can [fulfill your responsibilities as a manager] without strong relationships, you are kidding yourself,’” (p. xiii-xiv).

Good relationships are characterized by “Radical Candor,” Scott said, which exists at the intersection of “caring personally” and “challenging directly.” Too little of both leads to “Manipulative Insincerity.” A deficit of caring results in “Obnoxious Aggression,” while a lack of challenging directly ends in “Ruinous Empathy.”

Radical Candor is not only powerful, but scalable, as it possesses the potential to transform the culture of the organization.

Taking the leadership mantle for a mightily struggling organization, Bachelder and her leadership team began by committing to a leadership philosophy that would guide everything they did.

“We quickly agreed that this servant leadership notion would guide us going forward. But there was one more thing. We believed that servant leadership would deliver superior results. The performance of the enterprise would be the evidence that we had served others well,” (p. 18).

The results were as clear as they were dramatic.

Sales had increased by 45 percent, and profits had doubled. Popeyes’ share price rose to $61.31 by the end of 2016, and the company’s stock outpaced the S&P 500 restaurant sector and the overall S&P 500.

As a result, Bachelder proved that servant leadership could drive superior performance, even in a highly competitive environment like the food service industry.

Although givers, takers, and matchers all are capable of achieving success, the way in which they do so can be destructive or transformational for a team. “When takers win, there’s usually someone else who loses,” Grant said. “Givers succeed in a way that creates a ripple effect, enhancing the success of people around them. You’ll see that the difference lies in how giver success creates value, instead of just claiming it.”

In his 2017 book, “The Trust Factor: The Science of Creating High-Performance Companies,” author Paul J. Zak, the founding director of the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies and professor of economics, psychology, and management at Claremont Graduate University, presents the biological evidence for the power of trust in organizations, with extensive examples and research from for-profit, nonprofit, and government organizations.

The evidence Zak offers is anything but “warm and fuzzy.” Zak and his research team drew blood samples from participants across a broad range of organizations, and then measured levels of oxytocin, a chemical produced by the brain not only as a result of receiving trust, but which also has been shown to predict the reciprocation of trust.

In his best-selling book, "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team," Lencioni provides a framework for teams to tackle destructive and dysfunctional behaviors in the workplace. In “The Ideal Team Player,” Lencioni turns to the individual, and identifying three virtues that are important when hiring any person in any role in any organization to be successful. Or, on the flip side, how to avoid hiring a “jackass.”