Culture is a Boardroom Issue
- ADK Thought Leader
- Sep 30
- 2 min read
For many boards, culture is still viewed as an HR matter — a “soft” issue, secondary to strategy, compliance, or financial oversight. But here’s the truth: culture is the execution engine of strategy.
The best strategic plans mean little if the lived experiences of employees don’t align with the organisation’s stated values. When there’s a gap between what leaders say and what employees feel, strategies stall, risks multiply, and reputations suffer. At Advisory Kulture, we have seen this play out repeatedly — ethical breaches, governance failures, and even corporate collapses that stem not from poor strategy, but from cultures left unattended.
Why Boards Must Pay Attention
Boards are ultimately responsible for organisational governance. That responsibility extends beyond financial health and regulatory compliance to include the culture in which those systems operate. Culture determines:
Decision-making quality: Are leaders empowered to make ethical, long-term decisions, or pressured to cut corners?
Risk exposure: Are poor behaviours tolerated because they deliver short-term gains?
Reputation resilience: When mistakes happen, will stakeholders extend trust, or assume the worst?
Ignoring culture is not neutral — it is a risk in itself.
Our experience over the past 14 years confirms this. Roughly 20% of our culture transformation work has been initiated directly by boards. When asked why, board members consistently emphasised that culture influences not only the execution of strategy, but also governance, risk management, and human capital outcomes. In holding companies, directors often highlighted the importance of aligning subsidiaries to a central culture that reinforces shared values and accountability.
During board-initiated transformation projects across Africa, directors identified three primary expectations:
Alignment between the culture on the ground and the organisation’s aspired culture.
Clarity on how “the way things are done” should be defined and reinforced.
Agility to remain responsive while embedding culture into systems that add value.
The New Standard for Progressive Boards
Progressive boards are already shifting from rhetoric to rigour by adopting Acadova culture dashboards — tools that provide a bird’s-eye view of organisational culture. These dashboards allow boards to track employee engagement, values alignment, and behavioural risks with the same seriousness they apply to financial performance.
Boards that lead on culture now:
Review culture dashboards at the board level to monitor key cultural indicators.
Include culture as a standing agenda item in board meetings.
Hold executives accountable not just for delivering numbers, but for shaping and sustaining culture.
The shift is clear: boards that treat culture as a governance imperative see it as the foundation of sustainable performance, trust, and long-term shareholder value.
The Board’s Call to Action
If strategy is what your organisation wants to do, then culture is how it actually gets done. Boards cannot afford to treat culture as an afterthought. How is your board monitoring culture today? Is it part of your board pack — or still relegated to occasional HR updates?
The boards that answer wisely will be the ones steering organisations that not only survive, but thrive.
Contact Advisory Kulture to speak to a Culture Advisor on how to include culture metrics in your dashboards and board packs.
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