As boards enter 2026 and review strategy, performance and leadership capability, one issue is commanding renewed attention: leadership readiness.
After a year marked by macro-economic volatility, regulatory uncertainty and sustained executive churn, many organisations have discovered that their succession plans look reassuring on paper but falter under real pressure. Globally, boards are facing heightened scrutiny around governance maturity, leadership continuity and key-person risk – shifting succession planning from a future consideration to a core business risk.
According to global research conducted by Agilium Worldwide, only one in four companies are truly prepared for leadership transitions. Despite widespread confidence at board level, the research reveals a persistent gap between perceived readiness and actual capability — a finding echoed across markets and sectors.
Tuesday Consulting, which led the South African contribution to Agilium’s Securing the Future white paper, says the data reflects a broader structural issue: organisations continue to overestimate the strength of their leadership benches while underestimating the complexity of modern leadership roles.
“Succession planning is often acknowledged as important, but in practice it is still treated as a boardroom discussion rather than an operational discipline,” says Tsholofelo Nketane, Director at Tuesday Consulting. “When leadership exits occur – whether through retirement or resignation – organisations frequently find themselves reacting under pressure because the preparation and transition work did not happen early enough.”
The Agilium findings point to a growing disconnect between how organisations define readiness and what leadership today actually demands. Many succession plans remain narrowly focused on replacing individual executives, rather than building depth, adaptability and resilience across leadership teams.
Tuesday Consulting’s market insight suggests that leadership readiness in 2026 must evolve into an organisation-wide capability. This means understanding how leaders perform under pressure, how quickly talent can adapt to unfamiliar or expanded mandates, and whether succession pipelines reflect the future needs of the business, not yesterday’s role descriptions.
“Modern leadership roles sit at the intersection of regulation, stakeholder scrutiny, technology and constant uncertainty,” says Nketane. “Technical competence alone is no longer enough. Strategic judgement, emotional intelligence and the ability to stabilise teams through disruption are now fundamental, and these capabilities cannot be developed at the point of transition.”
Globally, leadership continuity is increasingly viewed through a governance and risk lens, reinforced by guidance from bodies such as the World Economic Forum, which has consistently identified leadership capability and resilience as critical organisational risks.
In South Africa, this scrutiny is amplified by expectations aligned with King IV principles, where ethical leadership, sustainability and continuity are central to long-term value creation. Leadership instability can stall strategy execution, unsettle investors and employees, and place additional strain on already stretched executive teams, particularly in highly regulated or fast-moving environments.
However, Tuesday Consulting’s experience working with boards and executive teams locally suggests a recurring gap between intent and execution.
“Across many South African organisations, particularly listed companies, succession planning exists at board level, but it is not consistently operationalised within the business,” says Nketane. “Without clear ownership, timelines and accountability at executive level, succession becomes reactive rather than proactive and organisations end up scrambling when a leader exits.”
Based on insights gathered during the white paper interviews, Nketane says boards should be moving beyond high-level discussions and asking more practical, execution focused questions:
- Are our succession plans actively embedded and executed within the organisation, or do they remain conceptual discussions at board level?
- Have we defined clear timelines and accountability for preparing successors well ahead of anticipated retirements or leadership exits?
- Do we have visibility into where execution gaps exist between succession intent and actual leadership readiness across the business?
“These are not theoretical questions,” says Nketane. “They require evidence, proof that succession planning is being lived and executed by the CEO, ExCo and HR leadership, not simply reviewed when its crisis time or once a year.”
The start of the year presents a natural reset point for boards – not only to ask who will lead next, but whether the organisation is genuinely prepared for leadership disruption when it arises.
“Succession planning fails not because organisations don’t care, but because they act too late or don’t follow through,” says Nketane. “Boards need to treat leadership readiness as a standing business priority, one that is measured, monitored and stress-tested long before a transition occurs.”
In 2026, leadership readiness will be a defining factor in organisational resilience, governance credibility and long-term value creation. For boards, the real risk is no longer being caught without a successor, it is discovering too late that readiness was assumed, not built.
For more information on Tuesday Consulting or to set up a time to be taken through the White Paper findings in detail, please visit the website.
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