Why are some leaders more trustworthy than others? Here’s how to tell

Trust is the essence of collaboration: as Yuval Harari eloquently noted, we as a species would not exist if it weren’t for our superior ability to collaborate so effectively — and it’s largely down to trust.

In the days of our hunter-gatherer ancestors, decisions on trust were relatively straightforward, even when it came to appointing leaders. Indeed, our ancestors lived in small groups of closely related individuals and spent all of their time together. Furthermore, the key attributes they were interested in evaluating or judging were easy to observe: courage, practical knowledge, hunting and fishing dexterity, and physical strength. There was no need then for psychometric assessments, AI, or scientific tools to assess either leadership potential or integrity, and mistakes were extremel