During a governance review at a top-tier insurer, the board chair routinely met department heads without informing the CEO.   Meanwhile, the CEO made sweeping HR decisions without board knowledge. Staff were confused. Executives were disoriented.   The board? Powerless. The insurer lost market share and senior talent. When Chair and CEO roles blur, an organisation drifts rudderless, leaderless, and exposed. Role confusion is governance sabotage Accountability breaks down when the Chair plays manager or the CEO becomes monarch. Most governance manuals list responsibilities, but ignore operational behaviour. The issue is not text, it is practice. Boards must stop assuming…

At a steel processing plant in Nairobi, the CEO invited the board to tour a newly commissioned mill, installed just six months earlier under their approved “five-year strategy.” What the directors saw shocked them: idle machines, rust already forming, and workers idle. The market had shifted, and China had dumped cheaper steel into the region, collapsing demand. One director sighed, “But we just approved this.” That is the fallacy. Strategy was treated as a one-time event, not a continuous discipline. Some boards feel they have done their part once they “approve the strategy.” But approval is not adaptation, and a strategy…