Tag: EthicalLeadership

A practical guide to working on your business - helping founders and leaders build organisations that perform well, act with integrity and endure.‎ Many entrepreneurs, founders, executives and board members spend their days immersed in urgent business demands. They solve problems, manage teams and respond to constant operational pressures. However, the greatest challenge for any enterprise involves learning how to step back and work on the business, not only in it.

How do we lead in Africa today, authentically, ethically, and with transformative impact? The African Leadership book offers a bold, timely response. This pioneering volume brings together multiple African voices. These voices challenge inherited models of leadership. They also illuminate a more grounded and contextually relevant approach.

A paradigm shift is necessary to ensure that shareholders, customers, employees and society benefit from good governance outcomes. The introduction of the King V Code on Corporate Governance for South Africa 2025 (King V) marks a clear turning point. Governance no longer functions as a simple administrative task.

The publication of the King V Code on Corporate Governance for South Africa 2025 (‘the Code’) marks more than just an update - it signals a profound philosophical shift. This new Code is engineered to restore and solidify stakeholder trust by providing verifiable assurance that companies are led with integrity and are effectively managed. It is a powerful move designed to drive transparent, long-term governance impacts and fundamentally end the era of "tick-box" compliance.

In today’s competitive marketplace, companies face mounting pressure to attract and retain investors. This pressure can tempt leaders to overstate achievements or inflate projections. Some may also resort to window dressing. While these tactics can polish a company’s image, they raise the risks of corporate ‘washing’. More seriously, they can cross into misrepresentation or securities fraud

Following several high-profile governance breakdowns, most notably the collapse of Daybreak, South Africa continues to grapple with the aftershocks. These failures follow persistent cases of state capture. As a result, company directors across sectors now face heightened scrutiny.

We have shared new research findings on how to achieve responsible entrepreneurship in South Africa. This work strengthens national conversations on achieving responsible entrepreneurship at a time when sustainability sits at the centre of global economic priorities.

With the growing challenges of fraud in today’s complex operational environments, organisations require a rigorous and adaptable framework to protect themselves against risks. ISO 37003 emerges as the new international standard specifically designed to offer comprehensive guidance for developing, implementing and maintaining a Fraud Control Management System (FCMS).

In South African corporate law, shareholders enjoy extensive rights - but face remarkably few obligations when exercising them. Directors, in contrast, are tightly bound by fiduciary and statutory duties, accountable for every decision they make on behalf of the company. This imbalance raises a critical question: Should shareholders also bear some responsibility - especially when their actions directly shape the strategic direction of a company?