The Global ESGT Megatrends 2026-2027 | #3 – Leadership: eroding trust and integrity
· 14 min read
At a time of deep geopolitical, technological and planetary change requiring ever more responsible and caring leaders, we are in a period of profound and worrying erosion in stakeholder trust in our leaders – partly due to the decline in ethical and transparent behaviours by leaders in government, business, academia, media, justice and even some NGOs.
At a time when we need more empathic leaders who are also equipped to be polymaths for our exponential era, instead we're getting more narcissists, authoritarians and sociopaths focused on achieving ends – great power, wealth and influence – for themselves and their narrow ecosystems.
In this Megatrend, I examine three deeply interconnected sub-trends that are feeding "Eroding Trust and Integrity" as follows:
As with the two previous megatrends – Megatrend #1 - Grinding Geopolitical Tectonics and Megatrend #2 - Surging Exponential Technologies – before we examine the Sub-trends, I will tie this third Megatrend to the overarching theme of this year's Global ESGT Megatrends 2026 -2027 "fragmentation, accumulation and acceleration".
Although this is a sobering article for a variety of important and even alarming reasons, we will conclude with several constructive suggestions for leaders to maintain or gain greater integrity and stakeholder trust.
Fragmentation. The fragmentation of leadership trust and integrity is illustrated in the almost contagious nature of social media platformed behaviours spread across the world from those with privilege (the already powerful, influential or wealthy) or those seeking privilege via X, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and other global platforms, broadcasting information, misinformation and disinformation far and wide to billions.
Cases in point: the Tate Brothers (recently indicted by the UK) who for the past decade have gotten away with building a social media empire of hate-based influence and possibly serious crimes, reaching millions and making them millions. This serves as but one small example of what others with even greater powers and reach are doing. Think trillion-dollar man Elon Musk with 240 million followers on X spewing daily anti-democratic, racist and false information. Think of the US President using his power, traditional and social media to spread disinformation to the entire world about such impactful things as wars, elections and democratic rights.
Accumulation. A new – what I call Global "Impune" Class – has been rising over the past decade as well. This class is made up of the wealthiest, mostly tech-connected entrepreneurs, investors and related politicians. Their impunity or apparent impunity is best expressed in that they have cozy relationships with and/or have captured the state and various politicians. They give money and get favours often without accountability, at least for now.
Case in point: how the "Technology Masters of the Universe" (as I call the Silicon Valley leaders in my book Governing Pandora) bowed (and continue to bow) to the second Trump Administration for their mutual benefit and continued "accumulation" of wealth and power.
Acceleration. Power and wealth creation has also accelerated over the past few years yielding (or coincident with) an increasingly polarised and unequal society. Where the underserved, poor, migrants, displaced people, hungry, war-torn populations living in less privileged countries or conditions get less, and the very wealthy keep getting more – and faster. Because of the influence of the exponential tech revolution where everything is accelerated in some cases exponentially, leadership decisions on large swaths of the population (think AI revolution) are leading to the acceleration of real and perceived inequality, poverty, educational disadvantages, health outcomes and more.
Case in point: check out the summary of key statistics below illustrating the acceleration of inequality and concomitant rise in related distrust.
Sources: Compiled by author from the following sources: Oxfam Global Inequality Report 2026; EU Tax Observatory; CPJ Global Impunity Index; Eurasia Group, Atlas of Impunity (2026).
If we look at several sources of reliable data, we can illustrate how corruption continues to be a serious and, in some cases, worsening worldwide phenomenon, recently turbocharged by largely unregulated and misunderstood new technologies like crypto spreading deeply into the governmental arena via kleptocracy.
According to the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index for 2025 though small pockets of progress have been made, these are the key trends around the world currently:
To which I will add the following observation: the elephant in the room is the United States which still has the largest and most powerful, economy and military in the world and until recently and for decades led and supported global anti-corruption efforts. It is now potentially the centre of the most extensive bribery, corruption and kleptocracy periods in its history. Only time – and a ton of investigations – will tell. Think Qatari jet; think Trump family enrichment; and so much more.
Source: https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2025/
Put it this way, here is a comparison of the United States TI CPI and ranking for 2015 versus 2025, notice any change?
Source: Author's analysis of Transparency International CPI for 2016 and 2026
Add crypto to this mix and the hidden corruption and kleptocracy possible is something we are not yet able to fathom and won't for years to come. In the meantime, here are some charts from Chainalysis Crypto Crime Report 2026 (using 2025 data) that show three waves of crypto crime between 2009-2025 and current crypto currency value received by illicit addresses:
Source: https://www.chainalysis.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/the-2026-crypto-crime-report-3-17-release.pdf
Source: https://www.chainalysis.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/the-2026-crypto-crime-report-3-17-release.pdf
Quoting Chainalysis:
"According to our data, illicit cryptocurrency addresses received at least $154 billion in 2025. This represents a 162% increase year-over-year (YoY), primarily driven by a dramatic 694% increase in the value received by sanctioned entities."
To which I would again add: how much has the current US Administration contributed not only to the elevation of corruption within the US but to the elevation of illicit crypto infused flows of corruption into the US and worldwide?
Because tone from the top matters. When the country that was the primary global anti-corruption force (via decades of Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and anti-Kleptocracy laws) suspends and even reverses anti-corruption legal enforcement unilaterally and suddenly one can only ponder why.
I define the new Global "Impune" Class as those transborder millionaires and billionaires, including business and political leaders and other figures, who are able to deploy the legal and illegal structures and means across various nations. They use legal and extra-legal accounting, tax, lobbying, judicial and other means to gain the greatest advantage possible for themselves and their ecosystems (families, companies, politicians) without paying the ultimate price of accountability. In other words, they operate with relative impunity. They are a Global Impune Class.
The Eurasia Group has published something called the Atlas of Impunity which goes to this point though it focuses on national impunity measurement. According to them: "Impunity—in its starkest form, the commission of crimes without punishment—is assessed across five dimensions: unaccountable governance, the abuse of human rights, economic exploitation, conflict and violence, and environmental degradation." Atlas of Impunity 2026. Below is a reproduction of their 2026 Atlas showing the relative impunity along these criteria that nations across the globe display.
Source: https://www.eurasiagroup.net/files/upload/202606AtlasofImpunitySummary.pdf
The key takeaways from their 2026 report are:
Most alarmingly, on this last point and consistent with earlier observations about corruption, to quote this report further:
"The only Western country among the ten with the greatest rise in impunity over the past year, the US's ranking deteriorated by six places to 117th. Moreover, Washington's dismantling of the US Agency for International Development, effectively defunding its accountability-focused contractors, has weakened the global infrastructure of accountability. Those cuts have dealt severe blows to the global network of actors that uphold rules, norms, and human rights worldwide."
I also track this phenomenon in my book Governing Pandora in Chapter 1 "The Global Tech Megascape" and Chapter 8 "Leadership: Turbocharging 360 Tech Governance" in which I discuss the Tech Masters of the Universe as a new mini-class of hyper-powerful, wealthy, connected and influential individuals who operate pretty much with impunity because of their extraordinary standing across borders. Check out this NPR story about how some of them are trying to create separate jurisdictions only subject to their own rules but no taxes or regulations. Or consider this New York Times story on "Why Peter Thiel is Decamping to the End of the World" – Argentina.
For more on this general topic, I highly recommend Anne Applebaum's great book Autocracy Inc., and the Johns Hopkins Kleptocracy Tracker.
A final and deeply intertwined sub-trend focuses on a related phenomenon: the surge of stakeholder distrust, polarisation and activism in a variety of contexts – business, political, social and environmental.
According to the Edelman Trust Barometer (which has examined stakeholder trust issues in around 28 countries worldwide for the past 25 years) "grievance is now the baseline" with 6 in 10 stakeholders believing that the four main institutions the Trust Barometer measures (business, government, media and NGOs) serve only narrow interests. They also found, more alarmingly, that 4 in 10 stakeholders endorse hostile activism to force change. Moreover, the Trust Barometer states that distrust in business leaders (who have had the most trust of the 4 institutions measured over the years) has risen by 21% since 2021.
This is not only true of the general population's stakeholders, it is also true in the investor class with a record 255 shareholder activism campaigns deploying $19 Billion in 2025 (compared to the prior record of 249 such campaigns in 2018) according to Barclays Review of Shareholder Activism 2025.
According to Just Capital which examines data relating to the largest publicly traded companies in the United States along five stakeholder groups (shareholders, communities, workers, environment and consumers) also tracking public perception and trust, there are some massive downshifts in trust by Americans in American companies especially workers and communities. And anxieties and distrust about the AI revolution have a lot to do with this.
Here's how the trust factor in Just Capital polling has fared over the past 6 years showing a massive shift to a perception that companies by 68% care most about their owners and shareholders not their workers or customers:
Source: Just Capital
And here are some of the headlines from Just Capital's recent polling and analysis regarding the impact of AI on public perception and on key stakeholders like workers:
While this is somewhat US-centric it shows that in even the most "advanced" economies there is a lot of distrust – and the perception and/or reality of growing inequality and polarisation – brewing among a variety of stakeholders on issues of wealth, tech, politics and more.
So, what is there to be done? A lot. We cannot be passive or in despair because of some of these dramatic and difficult challenges. Instead, each of us can do what we can as individual contributors, managers, leaders, board members, members of our societies.
You can start by looking at the below Typology of Leadership Trust and Integrity in the Age of Pandora, adapted from my book, Governing Pandora. In it, I offer you a way to cut through the noise and gain a little clarity about the integrity and stakeholder trust leadership that you might be dealing with and how easy or hard it might be to engage in productive discussions and change if needed.
Source: GEC Risk Advisory and A. Bonime-Blanc. Governing Pandora. Georgetown University Press 2026
And, finally, below is a list of four practical leadership to dos you can engage in now to protect and progress your trust and integrity.
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