85% of directors link governance failure with lack of training

Governance failure, one of the most consequential milestones in the lives of countless businesses, can be linked directly to a lack of dedicated training, according to the latest data from The Corporate Governance Institute. 

A new report released by the institute, titled Boardroom Resilience in 2026: Independent research into board readiness, risk and strategy, surveyed leaders from 500 companies across the UK and Ireland, with an average employee size of over 350. 

Among its multiple findings about boards’ levels of preparedness for key issues like AI governance and geopolitical risk, the report also found overwhelming support for the notion that governance training (or, more specifically, the lack thereof) and governance failures are intrinsically linked. 

39% of respondents strongly agreed that a lack of training on the board is one of the biggest causes of governance failure. A further 45% somewhat agreed to the same statement, giving a combined total of 85% who see training as an important tool in good governance.

Training is a newer concept in corporate governance. In the days when board members were purely agents of tick-box cultures – showing up just to rubber-stamp decisions that were already made – training didn’t seem crucial at all. 

Nowadays, things are different. There’s a lot of responsibility on the shoulders of board members, who are expected to actively engage with strategy, critically evaluate options and question everything. The more time passes, the more regulators try to enforce this behaviour with higher compliance requirements. It’s no surprise, amid all this, that such an overwhelming majority of modern corporate leaders link governance failures with a lack of training. 

It also aligns with other takeaways from the same Boardroom Resilience report:

• 85% of directors agree that their organisations must do more to aggressively tackle blind spots and deficiencies before they manifest as crises
• 77% agree that governance failures have a negative impact on investor confidence.
• 75% believe the same thing about their ability to secure funding.
• 76% believe the same thing about employee morale and retention.
• 75% believe the same thing about operational efficiency.

“The role of the board of the future has shifted considerably,” TCGI Co-Founder and Chair David Duffy said on the release of the Boardroom Resilience report. He explained that while risks have evolved, “many directors still struggle to identify their interrelationships and the strategic consequences of not addressing them. The path to effective governance requires a deliberate shift from static to more dynamic board oversight.”

The bottom line is that directors today live in a more “compliance-heavy” environment. It can be tough – enough, at times, to provoke anger and backlash – but the underlying principle of more oversight hasn’t changed. 

The flipside of this, however, is that embracing the new normals can do a lot for a company’s long-term sustainability. It amasses huge support from stakeholders and demonstrates controlled leadership to investors, who are more eager than ever for stability in today’s volatile market.