Senior, Director & CEO (Levels 7 & 8): Direction, Governance and Stewardship
At Levels 7 and 8 the focus is organisational direction and stewardship: setting strategy, shaping culture, governing risk, and representing the organisation to external stakeholders. Candidates must reason at the level of the whole enterprise and the long term.
Concepts to understand:
- Vision, mission and strategy - coherence between purpose, choices and resource allocation.
- Corporate governance - board roles, separation of executive and oversight functions, committees, controls, and the difference between governance and management.
- Risk appetite and resilience - setting tolerance, scenario planning, crisis leadership.
- Stakeholder and shareholder accountability - balancing interests, transparency, and reporting.
- Culture and ethics from the top - tone at the top, incentives, and speaking-up mechanisms.
- Leading transformation - large-scale change, capability building, and succession.
- External context - regulation, reputation, sustainability and public interest.
Traps. (1) Confusing governance (oversight, assurance) with management (execution). (2) Crisis answers that prioritise reputation over safety, or communicate before establishing facts. (3) Short-term financial answers that contradict stated purpose. (4) Options that concentrate decision-making in the CEO when the question is about board assurance.
Worked example. A serious safety incident occurs. The strong sequence is: protect people, establish facts, contain, communicate honestly and promptly, investigate independently, then act on findings and report. Reputation management follows the facts, never precedes them.
Rule of thumb - the stewardship test. Ask of any major decision: would I be comfortable defending this to the board, the regulator, employees and the public, with the reasoning made public? If not, the decision needs more work.