Management, Leadership and HR
Strategy and Planning
Board Effectiveness and Directors Duties
What a director is actually accountable for, and how a board adds value rather than reviewing papers.
- Duration
- 3 days
- Contact hours
- 18
- Level
- Executive
- Fee from
- On enquiry
Overview
Board seats carry personal duties that many directors have never had set out plainly. This programme covers those duties, and then the harder question of how a board earns its place: the balance between oversight and interference, the information a board should insist on, and the behaviours that separate a functioning board from a compliant one.
Who should attend
Directors, prospective directors, company secretaries and executives who report into a board.
What you will be able to do
- State a director's duties and the circumstances in which personal liability arises.
- Distinguish board oversight from management interference in practice.
- Specify the information a board needs and challenge what it is given.
- Recognise the behavioural patterns that make boards ineffective.
How it is taught
Short input, then work, across 3 days of roughly 6 teaching hours each. Exercises run on situations delegates bring rather than on a case study written for a different organisation. Cohorts are capped so that everybody is asked something.
Available as classroom, executive workshop, in house.
Programme outline
Day 1
The director's position
- Duties of care, skill and diligence
- Conflicts of interest and how to handle them
- Personal liability and its triggers
- Delegation and what cannot be delegated
Oversight without interference
- Where the boundary actually sits
- Holding management to account
- The chair and chief executive relationship
- Committees and their proper scope
Day 2
Information and challenge
- Specifying what the board receives
- Reading a board pack critically
- Questions that expose an assumption
- Recognising managed information
Day 3
Board behaviour
- Dysfunction patterns and how they present
- Dissent and how a board records it
- Evaluation and renewal
- Crisis behaviour
What you leave with
- A duties summary the delegate can hold against their own conduct.
- A board information specification for the delegate's organisation.
- A self assessment of the delegate's own board or reporting line.
- A set of challenge questions for recurring board papers.
Dates and fees
| Dates | Location | Format | Fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| 23 to 25 November 2026 | Durban, South Africa | Classroom | R12,000 |
| 30 November 2026 to 2 December 2026 | Cape Town, South Africa | Classroom | R12,000 |
| 7 to 9 December 2026 | Cairo, Egypt | Classroom | US$1,200 |
| 14 to 16 December 2026 | Kampala, Uganda | Classroom | US$1,200 |
Fees are per delegate and cover tuition, all programme materials and the certificate. Travel, accommodation and visas are arranged by the delegate. Registration closes two weeks before a programme starts.
Certificate
A GATI certificate recording what was attended, issued after the programme has run and attendance has been taken. Attending at least 80 per cent of the days earns a certificate of completion; attending less earns a certificate of attendance stating exactly what was attended. Every certificate carries a code that anybody can check against GATI's own record.
It records participation. and GATI does not claim one it does not hold.