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The true depth of accountability

Accountability has for the longest of times been touted as one of the key pillars of governance, for very good reasons. Can one talk about governance without accountability? Especially when you consider the fact that we are living in a world where complexity is not only the order of the day, but the degree of complexity is also constantly increasing? Amid all the chaos it would be a fallacy to ignore the importance of accountability. Yet, there are often signs that accountability is either not understood at a deep enough level or, where there is a real understanding of the concept, it is not always being practiced as it should – perhaps because we tend to see its applicability for others, but sometimes battle to see how it applies to us, because we know our intentions (or think that we do).

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A Board is only as strong as the judgment it can hear

1 October 2026

Consider an imagined village gathering. A drum calls everyone together and announces the decisions. Its sound commands attention, and people remember it long after the gathering ends.
But before the drum sounded, a spider had been weaving connections between people, carrying ideas and shaping opinions. The drum was audible; the spider’s influence was less visible. The loudest voice is not always the one that moves the community.
Boardrooms can work in much the same way. Airtime and influence are not the same thing. To understand the quality of a board’s judgment, we must examine both what happens during the discussion and what has already shaped it.
A board can have the right skills around the table and still fail to use them. Its members may collectively understand finance, operations, people, technology, risk and the organisation’s wider environment, resulting in a board that looks well composed on paper. Yet, it may not see what is actually shaping its most material decisions.

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When Pressure Enters the Boardroom

30 September 2026

Those moments, when the tension is so thick in the Boardroom that you can cut it with a knife, tend to sneak up more often when the organisation is under pressure. They arrive without being calculated into the room.

I prefer to the called in prior to cultures becoming toxic, but I generally find myself called in when tension runs high between the NEDs and the executives – and most of the time both have legitimate reasons to be tense. Frustration is palpable and, before you know it, an us-versus-them atmosphere is created. I am often amazed at how a group of good people divides itself into camps where each considers the other not worthy of their trust. And often the cost of the tension to the organisation is not calculated or even acknowledged. Especially not when the organisation is in crisis.

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When People Doing the Right Thing Stand Alone

9 September 2026

As we grow older, experience bends and reshapes the things we believe. Sometimes we see the reshaping and are consciously aware of where it takes us. Sometimes we only realise long after the fact that the bending happened. I have a long list of items that have been bent and reshaped in my consciousness. I am pretty sure that some of them are not yet in my conscious mind. I was recently reminded of one of my reshaped opinions when I was asked to speak at the University of Johannesburg’s annual Corruption Summit.
There was a time in my career when a younger version of me stood before professionals and told them that they must do the right thing—even when they had to stand alone. I said it with conviction, because it was the right thing to say. But, with more life experience under my belt, I now understand that I had a too narrow view back then.

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