What do you think?
Rate this book
Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations
* “A rare combination of deep insight and helpful research, and an important book.” -Stephen R. Covey & Stephen M. R. Covey
* “The best leadership book since Good to Great.” -Bob Whipple
* “the new leadership manifesto.” -Richard Leider
* “a compelling case for the kind of leadership we so desperately need today.” -Frances Hesselbein
* “Following their wise counsel will enable you to inspire your team to peak performance.” -Bill George
* “a compelling road map for leaders across the public, private, or nonprofit sector.” -Marty Linsky
* A winner of the International Book Awards
What kind of leadership do we desperately need today?
Tired of toxic workplaces and weak leadership?
Discover how triple crown leadership can transform your organization or team.
Based on interviews with leaders in 61 organizations in 11 countries, comprehensive research, and the authors’ extensive experience across many industries and sectors, Triple Crown Leadership will help you:
* Build an organization or team that’s excellent, ethical, and enduring.
* Recruit, develop, and reward people much more effectively.
* Set an inspiring shared purpose, values, and vision and then bring them to life in the organization.
* Flex your leadership approach to address the specific situation you’re facing.
* Build a high-performance organizational culture.
* Align your organization or team for peak performance.
"Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations," a winner of the International Book Awards, champions a better brand of leadership.
The book provides you with advanced leadership practices so you can achieve exceptional results with integrity—and over time. It addresses leading people, leadership versatility, culture, alignment, avoiding breakdowns, and leading in specific circumstances (startups, turnarounds, and social enterprises).
✅ Learn how to build a culture of excellence, ethics, and enduring impact.
✅ Discover actionable tools for leaders at all levels.
✅ Based on real-world interviews with leaders from Google, Mayo Clinic, eBay, and more.
Join thousands of leaders committed to building ethical, high-performing organizations.
Grab your copy now and lead the change.
* “The best leadership book since Good to Great.” -Bob Whipple
* “the new leadership manifesto.” -Richard Leider
* “a compelling case for the kind of leadership we so desperately need today.” -Frances Hesselbein
* “Following their wise counsel will enable you to inspire your team to peak performance.” -Bill George
* “a compelling road map for leaders across the public, private, or nonprofit sector.” -Marty Linsky
* A winner of the International Book Awards
What kind of leadership do we desperately need today?
Tired of toxic workplaces and weak leadership?
Discover how triple crown leadership can transform your organization or team.
Based on interviews with leaders in 61 organizations in 11 countries, comprehensive research, and the authors’ extensive experience across many industries and sectors, Triple Crown Leadership will help you:
* Build an organization or team that’s excellent, ethical, and enduring.
* Recruit, develop, and reward people much more effectively.
* Set an inspiring shared purpose, values, and vision and then bring them to life in the organization.
* Flex your leadership approach to address the specific situation you’re facing.
* Build a high-performance organizational culture.
* Align your organization or team for peak performance.
"Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations," a winner of the International Book Awards, champions a better brand of leadership.
The book provides you with advanced leadership practices so you can achieve exceptional results with integrity—and over time. It addresses leading people, leadership versatility, culture, alignment, avoiding breakdowns, and leading in specific circumstances (startups, turnarounds, and social enterprises).
✅ Learn how to build a culture of excellence, ethics, and enduring impact.
✅ Discover actionable tools for leaders at all levels.
✅ Based on real-world interviews with leaders from Google, Mayo Clinic, eBay, and more.
Join thousands of leaders committed to building ethical, high-performing organizations.
Grab your copy now and lead the change.
- GenresLeadershipBusiness
320 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 2012
13 people are currently reading
72 people want to read
About the author
Bob Vanourek
3 books2 followersLeadership expert and award-winning author, Bob Vanourek is the former CEO of five companies, ranging from a start-up to a $1 billion NY stock exchange company. They include winners of a state-level Malcolm Baldrige Quality Award and the Shingo Prize for Operational Excellence. Bob is a highly popular speaker on ethical leadership.
Bob is the author of Leadership Wisdom: Lessons from Poetry, Prose, and Curious Verse and the co-author of Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations, a 2013 International Book Awards Winner, called “the best leadership book since Good to Great.” Bob has been a contributing writer to many publications and a chapter-contributor to six books on ethics, trust, and servant leadership.
Bob is a former adjunct leadership instructor at the University of Denver and Colorado Mountain College. He was Chairman and Chairman Emeritus of the Vail Leadership Institute (now a part of The Vail Centre), and a former board member or leader of ten for-profit and non-profit boards. Bob has been a consultant-coach for many corporations, non-profits, and international, state, and local governments.
He is a Baker Scholar graduate (top 5%) of the Harvard Business School, a magna cum laude graduate of Princeton University, and a certified leadership instructor from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and the Phi Theta Kappa Society.
Bob has been named one of the “Top Thought Leaders in Trust” for 2013 - 2016, as well as one of the American Management Association’s “Leaders to Watch in 2015.” Bob is a decorated Army officer and a lifelong student of leadership.
If you are seeking a better way to lead your life and to lead others, then you need to be in dialogue with Bob. He changes hearts and minds about leadership.
Bob is the author of Leadership Wisdom: Lessons from Poetry, Prose, and Curious Verse and the co-author of Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations, a 2013 International Book Awards Winner, called “the best leadership book since Good to Great.” Bob has been a contributing writer to many publications and a chapter-contributor to six books on ethics, trust, and servant leadership.
Bob is a former adjunct leadership instructor at the University of Denver and Colorado Mountain College. He was Chairman and Chairman Emeritus of the Vail Leadership Institute (now a part of The Vail Centre), and a former board member or leader of ten for-profit and non-profit boards. Bob has been a consultant-coach for many corporations, non-profits, and international, state, and local governments.
He is a Baker Scholar graduate (top 5%) of the Harvard Business School, a magna cum laude graduate of Princeton University, and a certified leadership instructor from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and the Phi Theta Kappa Society.
Bob has been named one of the “Top Thought Leaders in Trust” for 2013 - 2016, as well as one of the American Management Association’s “Leaders to Watch in 2015.” Bob is a decorated Army officer and a lifelong student of leadership.
If you are seeking a better way to lead your life and to lead others, then you need to be in dialogue with Bob. He changes hearts and minds about leadership.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
September 28, 2025
Triple Crown Leadership by Bob and Gregg Vanourek is a powerful call for leaders to raise their sights beyond quarterly results. The authors argue that the true aim of leadership is to build organizations that are excellent, ethical, and enduring.
They outline five advanced practices—balancing head and heart, grounding culture in shared values (“the colors”), flexing between steel and velvet, empowering people as stewards, and ensuring alignment across the enterprise.
What makes the book stand out is its blend of practicality and moral clarity. It doesn’t ignore the pressures leaders face but insists that long-term success requires both performance and principle.
Clear, inspiring, and grounded in real-world experience, this book is essential reading for anyone serious about leading with impact and integrity.
They outline five advanced practices—balancing head and heart, grounding culture in shared values (“the colors”), flexing between steel and velvet, empowering people as stewards, and ensuring alignment across the enterprise.
What makes the book stand out is its blend of practicality and moral clarity. It doesn’t ignore the pressures leaders face but insists that long-term success requires both performance and principle.
Clear, inspiring, and grounded in real-world experience, this book is essential reading for anyone serious about leading with impact and integrity.
December 11, 2016
I had started to give up on leadership books. They were all starting to read the same. But then, this little gem came along. The book uses the chasing of the elusive Triple Crown in horse racing as the backdrop for exploring the same chase that should be occurring within business. Few horses have won the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes, and Belmont Stakes. However, that goal is still pursued as the pinnacle of horse racing. Likewise, leaders should be on a quest to create businesses that deliver the three Es.
"This quest for excellent, ethical, and enduring organizations may be the defining leadership challenge for our age. Will we rise to the occasion? We can, but we need a different brand of leadership better suited to our age."
This statement contained within the concluding chapter of the book is the fundamental reason why you need to read this book.
Ethical leadership is viewed as more than good business practice with a suitable return on investment. Instead, it's presented as a business imperative on par with excellent performance and sustained long-term value. It's positioned as worthy of pursuit even if there are short-term losses and costs associated with ethical conduct. There's no easy answers, checklists, or roadmaps presented in the book because there really is no shortcut or pattern for ethical leadership. Values will be tested. Values will collide. At times you will have to choose between unpalatable alternatives. There will be adversity and setbacks. Critics will emerge. Decisions will be questioned.
However, "triple crown leaders undertake these challenges". Triple crown leaders leave the world of either/or behind. They are realists and idealists, steel and velvet, disciplined and creative, leaders and followers, willful and humble; using both head and heart to create value for today and tomorrow. Yes, this is a difficult quest -- but that's what makes it so compelling when pursued and even partially achieved.
"This quest for excellent, ethical, and enduring organizations may be the defining leadership challenge for our age. Will we rise to the occasion? We can, but we need a different brand of leadership better suited to our age."
This statement contained within the concluding chapter of the book is the fundamental reason why you need to read this book.
Ethical leadership is viewed as more than good business practice with a suitable return on investment. Instead, it's presented as a business imperative on par with excellent performance and sustained long-term value. It's positioned as worthy of pursuit even if there are short-term losses and costs associated with ethical conduct. There's no easy answers, checklists, or roadmaps presented in the book because there really is no shortcut or pattern for ethical leadership. Values will be tested. Values will collide. At times you will have to choose between unpalatable alternatives. There will be adversity and setbacks. Critics will emerge. Decisions will be questioned.
However, "triple crown leaders undertake these challenges". Triple crown leaders leave the world of either/or behind. They are realists and idealists, steel and velvet, disciplined and creative, leaders and followers, willful and humble; using both head and heart to create value for today and tomorrow. Yes, this is a difficult quest -- but that's what makes it so compelling when pursued and even partially achieved.
December 31, 2018
A refreshing view of leadership beyond the next quarters financial success. Bob and Gregg Vanourek emphasize and demonstrate the lasting success of organizations built on ethical leadership and excellent results.
They prove in fact and based on well-known examples that one does not need to behave in a cut-throat way in order to reach ones goals and longer lasting success can rather be achieved by ethical means.
Strong recommendation for leaders on all levels as well as those, who sometimes lose hope in today's business world.
They prove in fact and based on well-known examples that one does not need to behave in a cut-throat way in order to reach ones goals and longer lasting success can rather be achieved by ethical means.
Strong recommendation for leaders on all levels as well as those, who sometimes lose hope in today's business world.
July 17, 2012
One of our Esperanza board members--Steve Winitzky--sent me information about this book because the author had been one of his mentors. Because of my respect for this board member and because the title intrigued me, I bought the book. It is WONDERFUL! I am ready to go out and buy a notebook specifically for applying the ideas in this book.
August 31, 2013
Great leadership book that really got my wheels turning about how to apply what I learned to our organization.
August 18, 2017
Great lessons in leadership.
January 16, 2013
In a sentence: this book is a guide to principle-based leadership of organizations in today's business environment of low-trust.
The first chapter defines what is meant by Triple Crown Leadership: making organisations excellent, ethical, and enduring. Part One looks at the principles you need to follow to achieve that goal. Part Two is case studies of organizations that have succeeded in the Triple Crown quest.
Readers of the works of Stephen R. Covey, Stephen M.R. Covey, and Sean Covey will understand the importance of principles in everyday life, in self-leadership, and in leadership of other people. This book is influenced by their work and is backed up with research and wide-ranging reading of leadership literature.
For business leaders, it's worth a read, but I wouldn't spend too long on it as it's less actionable than you need to succeed in business.
The first chapter defines what is meant by Triple Crown Leadership: making organisations excellent, ethical, and enduring. Part One looks at the principles you need to follow to achieve that goal. Part Two is case studies of organizations that have succeeded in the Triple Crown quest.
Readers of the works of Stephen R. Covey, Stephen M.R. Covey, and Sean Covey will understand the importance of principles in everyday life, in self-leadership, and in leadership of other people. This book is influenced by their work and is backed up with research and wide-ranging reading of leadership literature.
For business leaders, it's worth a read, but I wouldn't spend too long on it as it's less actionable than you need to succeed in business.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews