If there is one practical action I would encourage every leader to take, it is this:
Spend more time where the work actually happens.
One of the most effective assurance activities I see organisations undertake is the Senior Leadership Tour. Not a staged visit. Not a carefully prepared walkaround. A genuine opportunity to step away from the boardroom, office or management meeting and spend time with the people delivering the work every day.
Why?
Because reports, dashboards and key performance indicators only tell part of the story.
Every organisation produces management information. Leaders review performance reports, compliance updates, audit findings and board papers. All of this information is important and forms part of effective governance.
However, there is always a risk that leadership becomes disconnected from operational reality.
The reality is that most issues do not suddenly appear. Standards tend to drift gradually. Processes evolve. Workarounds develop. Controls become inconsistently applied. Housekeeping deteriorates. Equipment defects remain unresolved. Shortcuts become accepted practice.
Over time, these issues become normalised.
The people closest to the work often stop seeing them because they have become part of the everyday environment. Equally, leaders may never see them because the issue is not significant enough to appear on a report.
This is where leadership visibility becomes so valuable.
Throughout my career, some of the most important findings I’ve uncovered have not come from reviewing policies or analysing performance data. They have come from walking the workplace, observing activities, asking questions and listening to employees.
A conversation with a maintenance technician. A discussion with a care worker. An observation of a warehouse process. A comment made by a supervisor during a routine inspection.
These interactions often reveal far more about the health of an organisation than a dashboard ever could.
Leadership tours also send a powerful message to employees.
When leaders are visible, approachable and genuinely interested in understanding operational challenges, people notice. It demonstrates that leadership cares about more than targets and financial performance. It shows an interest in the day-to-day realities of the workforce.
As a result, trust often increases. Morale improves. Employees become more willing to raise concerns, share ideas and highlight issues before they develop into larger problems.
From a governance perspective, leadership tours provide something equally important: assurance.
They allow leaders to validate whether management information reflects reality. They provide an opportunity to test assumptions, challenge blind spots and gain first-hand evidence of how standards are being maintained.
In many ways, they complement formal audits and inspections.
An audit may tell you whether a process exists.
An inspection may tell you whether standards are being maintained.
A leadership tour helps you understand how work is really being carried out and whether the culture, behaviours and expectations you believe exist are genuinely present on the ground.
Together, these activities provide a much richer picture of organisational performance.
The strongest leaders I have worked with share a common characteristic.
They do not rely solely on reports to understand their organisation.
They make a conscious effort to remain connected to the operation.
They ask questions.
They listen.
They observe.
And most importantly, they go and see for themselves.
Because effective governance is not about sitting further away from risk.
It is about maintaining visibility of it.
Sometimes the most valuable assurance a leader can obtain doesn’t come from a board paper, a KPI dashboard or an audit report.
Sometimes it comes from putting on a pair of safety shoes, walking the workplace and seeing reality with their own eyes.
