(MENAFN- Khaleej Times)

In a striking reflection on the origins of true governance, Nikolai Tsenov, Head of Solutions & Innovations at Swiss GRC, evoked the Great Fire of Dubai in 1894, describing how ordinary people, armed with nothing more than“courage, instinct and buckets,”formed human chains, coordinated silently and saved their city without plans or commands.

His point was clear, leadership does not come from titles or documents but from behaviour, courage and judgment in moments of chaos. Risk management, he argued, becomes meaningful only when it moves from a formal function to a cultural capability, and trust emerges as the ultimate currency of survival.

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“These are the moments where risk management from a formal process turns into a broader combination of instinct, collaboration, and foresight. And above all, these are the moments when trust emerges as a... the most precious asset, as a currency of survival,” he told his audience at GCC GRC Day 2025- UAE edition.

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For him and other speakers, organisations across sectors increasingly must recognise that culture is not a set of posters or statements pinned to office walls but the living expression of leadership behaviour.

“I would like to see consistent, rational, persistent behaviour,” said Prince Rama, Head of Information Security, Risk & Governance- Seddiqi Holding during a panel discussion on Leadership & Organisational Culture moderated by Ricardo Vasconceslos Dias, Senior Director, ERM-Group HoldCo & Etisalat UAE, e& Risk and Assurance.

“If the tone of the bar setting from the top is not consistent, not rational, not logically explainable... you could confuse the rest of the organisation and that creates quite a lot of problems,” he added.

Maram Habash, SVP, Group Head Client Experience and Conduct, Retail Banking and Treasury at Mashreq Bank said that risk must be embedded in every decision and not treated as an afterthought.

“If the risk is important, then it has to be at every single decision that they take,” she added.

Leadership behaviour during crises plays a decisive role in shaping organisational stability. Maintaining calm under pressure is essential, as any sense of panic at senior levels quickly unsettles teams on the ground. Acknowledging uncertainty, rather than masking it, becomes an important element of trust-building, particularly when decisions must be made with incomplete information and employees look to management for clarity and reassurance Moreover, there is a cultural change that the expectation that risk and compliance should“police” the business is fading, replaced by a model in which they enable informed decision-making.

“When you are safe, you can, and you trust that you can, say what you wanna say,” said Dr Sona Das, Data Strategy Governance & Analytics Lead at a confidential government entity in KSA.

While improving culture depends on behaviour, measuring it requires a different discipline. Risk ownership, they argued, belongs in the first line, just as the responsibility for data quality shifted from IT to business teams years earlier.

The panelists emphasized that governance teams should move away from acting as corporate police and instead position themselves as enablers who help the business make better decisions, while ensuring that accountability remains with the frontline. Much of the sharpest criticism focused on legacy compliance practices that continue to drain time without improving outcomes.

They added that traditional tick-box exercises, such as standardised Excel self-assessments or universal 200-question vendor surveys, are examples of processes that no longer reflect the varying risk profiles of different suppliers and functions. Moreover, organisations must look at modernising training.

Rather than generic, organisation-wide modules, the speakers advocated for tailored programmes aligned to the specific risks and responsibilities of each department. Relevance, they argued, is what prompts teams to take ownership of risk rather than viewing it as an administrative burden.

Nonetheless, they added that emerging risks where rigid, binary compliance frameworks are poorly suited. With new products and technologies multiplying, panelists said that leaders must enhance cross collaboration across functions.

Leadership effectiveness, they added, is closely tied to how challenge is handled. Constructive challenge should function as facilitation rather than confrontation, opening up debate and encouraging teams to surface issues early.

When asked to distill a non-negotiable leadership practice, the panelists pointed to transparency, consistency and careful judgment in how organisations reward or reprimand behaviour, noting the long shadow these signals cast. Others emphasised the need for leaders to understand issues in depth, to remain aware of how their actions influence their teams and, above all, to ensure alignment between senior management, strategy and the wider organisation.

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