Ethical Leadership and Integrity Training Course

Duration 5 days 10 modules · 33 contact hours
Level Intermediate Certificate on completion
Who attends Senior Executives, Board Members and others
Fee from USD 1,100 KSh 95,000 for Kenyan organisations
Where 52 cities + online See dates by city
Next start 16 Nov 2026 Course code SD-CG-050

Before you join: Participants should have experience managing people, projects, budgets, contracts, programmes or governance responsibilities.

Dates & prices

Two start dates a month in every city, and live online on weekdays or weekends. Fees are per participant; classroom fees include tuition, materials, lunch and refreshments, and the certificate.

Suggest a date or city

Showing the next six months. Later dates, other cities and private deliveries for your team are available on request.

Course overview

Senior officials and managers make decisions that affect public trust, employee conduct, shareholder value and regulatory exposure. Ethical failures rarely begin with an obvious breach; they often develop through unmanaged conflicts of interest, weak challenge, selective reporting, inappropriate incentives or pressure to meet targets. Leaders need a disciplined way to identify these pressures, make defensible decisions and set expectations that others can follow.

This course examines ethical leadership as a core corporate governance responsibility. Participants work with the OECD G20 Principles of Corporate Governance, the IIA Three Lines Model, COSO internal control concepts and ISO 37001 anti-bribery controls. They learn to assess ethical risks, declare and manage conflicts, handle gifts and hospitality, respond to speak-up concerns, conduct fair fact-finding and apply structured decision methods to difficult cases. The course also addresses board and executive accountability, culture, incentives, stakeholder duties and transparent communication.

Teaching combines short instructor briefings with realistic governance cases, facilitated group analysis, decision simulations and application planning. Cases reflect issues faced by banks, public bodies, NGOs, infrastructure operators and multinational businesses, including procurement pressure, related-party transactions, whistleblowing and senior misconduct allegations. Participants leave with an ethical leadership action plan, a documented decision model and practical governance templates for use with their teams. A certificate of completion is issued to participants who complete the five-day course.

The course is designed for experienced managers, senior officials and governance professionals who influence decisions, controls, conduct standards or organisational culture. It is particularly relevant where leaders must balance commercial, public-interest, regulatory and stakeholder obligations.

What you will be able to do

  • Apply a structured ethical decision-making model to complex leadership decisions
  • Assess conduct risks using a governance, controls and culture risk map
  • Manage conflicts of interest through disclosure, recusal and documented controls
  • Evaluate board and executive accountabilities using the OECD G20 Principles
  • Design speak-up and non-retaliation response steps for reported concerns
  • Conduct fair initial fact-finding using evidence, confidentiality and due-process principles
  • Align incentives, performance measures and consequences with expected conduct
  • Produce a 90-day ethical leadership action plan for a business unit or function

Benefits of attending

For you

  • Make defensible decisions when commercial, legal and ethical considerations conflict
  • Recognise early warning signs of misconduct, retaliation and compromised independence
  • Handle conflicts of interest without damaging trust or decision integrity
  • Lead difficult conduct conversations with clearer evidence and consistent standards
  • Build a documented leadership record for governance, audit and promotion discussions

For your organisation

  • Reduce misconduct exposure through earlier identification of conduct and control failures
  • Improve board confidence in management reporting, escalation and ethical challenge
  • Strengthen conflict-of-interest controls for procurement, hiring and third-party decisions
  • Increase confidence in speak-up channels and reduce retaliation risk
  • Align incentives and performance management with stated conduct expectations

Course modules

10 modules over 5 days

Participants can define ethical leadership responsibilities and connect them to governance accountabilities.

  • Ethical leadership duties under fiduciary, public-interest and stakeholder accountabilities
  • Distinguishing personal values, professional obligations and enforceable codes of conduct
  • OECD G20 Principles: accountability, fairness, transparency and responsible oversight
  • Board, executive and management responsibilities within the Three Lines Model
  • Identifying ethical risk signals before misconduct becomes normalized
  • Applying consequentialist, rights-based, justice and virtue ethics to decisions
  • Documenting ethical rationale where legal compliance alone is insufficient

Participants can apply a repeatable method to make and defend difficult ethical decisions.

  • PLUS decision model: policies, legal duties, universal values and self
  • Framing decisions through facts, stakeholders, duties, options and consequences
  • Separating urgent operational pressure from legitimate ethical justification
  • Recognizing rationalizations: normalization, diffusion, obedience and motivated blindness
  • Testing decisions through reversibility, publicity and trusted-adviser questions
  • Recording assumptions, dissenting views and residual ethical risks
  • Escalating decisions when authority, independence or expertise is insufficient

Participants can identify, disclose and control actual, potential and perceived conflicts.

  • Actual, potential and perceived conflicts distinguished through practical scenarios
  • Conflict registers capturing interests, relationships, declarations and management actions
  • Recusal, restricted access and independent review as proportionate safeguards
  • Related-party transactions assessed for disclosure, approval and fair dealing
  • Procurement conflicts involving suppliers, family connections and former employers
  • Independence threats created by gifts, hospitality, outside work and investments
  • Communicating conflict decisions without implying misconduct or favouritism

Participants can assess improper influence risks and apply proportionate anti-bribery controls.

  • ISO 37001 anti-bribery management system controls and leadership commitments
  • Distinguishing legitimate hospitality from inducements and concealed personal benefits
  • Risk-based due diligence for agents, intermediaries and joint-venture partners
  • Red flags in charitable donations, sponsorships and facilitation payment requests
  • Approval thresholds, gift registers and documented business purpose requirements
  • Third-party payment controls: beneficial ownership, invoices and bank-account verification
  • Responding to suspected bribery without compromising evidence or due process

Participants can respond to concerns in ways that protect reporters, evidence and fairness.

  • Speak-up channel design: accessibility, confidentiality, anonymity and case tracking
  • Receiving concerns without premature judgement, promises or informal retaliation
  • Retaliation indicators: exclusion, adverse assignments, performance pressure and threats
  • Triage criteria for safeguarding, legal, financial and reputational risks
  • Preserving confidentiality while providing appropriate updates to reporting parties
  • Psychological safety practices that permit respectful challenge and dissent
  • Management responsibilities after reports involving senior leaders or powerful stakeholders

Participants can commission and support fair initial fact-finding on conduct concerns.

  • Initial allegation assessment using scope, source, urgency and evidence criteria
  • Terms of reference defining mandate, independence, confidentiality and reporting lines
  • Evidence preservation for emails, records, devices and relevant meeting notes
  • Interview planning using open questions, corroboration and contemporaneous documentation
  • Due-process safeguards for reporters, witnesses and subjects of allegations
  • Separating substantiated facts, reasonable inferences and unresolved evidence gaps
  • Investigation findings translated into remediation, discipline and control improvements

Participants can diagnose culture drivers and align incentives with expected conduct.

  • Conduct risk mapping across incentives, decisions, controls and leadership behaviours
  • Tone from the top compared with signals from middle management
  • Performance scorecards balancing financial outcomes, conduct and stakeholder impacts
  • Identifying perverse incentives in sales targets, procurement savings and promotions
  • COSO control environment principles applied to ethical culture assessment
  • Consequences management: consistency, proportionality, documentation and timely communication
  • Using staff surveys, exit data and incidents as culture indicators

Participants can prepare meaningful ethics and conduct information for governing bodies.

  • Board oversight of culture, conduct, conflicts and material ethical risks
  • Ethics dashboards combining reports, investigations, training, trends and remediation
  • Leading and lagging indicators for conduct risk monitoring
  • Escalation thresholds for serious allegations, regulatory issues and systemic failures
  • Reporting bad news with evidence, uncertainty, actions and accountable owners
  • Challenge questions directors should ask about culture and management responses
  • Minutes and decision records supporting accountability and subsequent review

Participants can balance stakeholder interests while maintaining clear accountability for decisions.

  • Stakeholder mapping by power, legitimacy, urgency and affected interests
  • Materiality assessments connecting business decisions with stakeholder consequences
  • Human rights due diligence: identify, prevent, mitigate and account
  • Public-interest considerations in delegated authority and use of public resources
  • Responsible communication during incidents, investigations and contested decisions
  • Managing confidentiality against legitimate transparency and disclosure expectations
  • Reconciling local practices with organisational standards and legal obligations

Participants can create a practical plan to improve ethical leadership within their area of responsibility.

  • Personal ethical leadership charter defining commitments, boundaries and escalation triggers
  • Ninety-day action plan linking risks, actions, owners and review dates
  • Priority control improvements selected through impact, feasibility and urgency criteria
  • Team discussion routines for conflicts, dilemmas and respectful challenge
  • Stakeholder communication plan for policy changes and conduct expectations
  • Measures for monitoring speak-up, conflicts, training completion and remediation
  • Peer accountability arrangements supporting sustained leadership behaviour change

Exercises and examples are adapted to each cohort's sectors and roles.

What you take back to work

  1. Ethical decision-making worksheet
  2. Conflict-of-interest declaration and management template
  3. Speak-up response and anti-retaliation checklist
  4. Conduct risk and culture assessment map
  5. Board ethics dashboard template
  6. Ninety-day ethical leadership action plan

Who should attend

  • Senior Executives — set conduct expectations and make high-consequence decisions
  • Board Members — oversee ethics, culture, risk and executive accountability
  • Public Sector Officials — manage public-interest duties, procurement and delegated authority
  • Compliance and Ethics Managers — maintain conduct frameworks and investigate concerns
  • Risk and Internal Audit Leaders — assess culture, controls and governance failures
  • Human Resources Directors — align performance, discipline and speak-up protections

Skills and tools covered

Ethical decision-makingGovernance accountabilityConflict managementSpeak-up responseConduct risk assessmentCulture and incentives

Tools and standards

OECD G20 Principles of Corporate Governance, IIA Three Lines Model, ISO 37001 Anti-bribery Management Systems, COSO Internal Control Framework

How the course runs

Training methodology

The course uses short briefings to introduce governance standards, ethical reasoning methods and conduct controls. Participants analyse cases involving procurement conflicts, reporting pressure, gifts, whistleblowing and senior misconduct. Small-group work tests competing duties and documents decision rationales; simulations practise challenge, escalation and response conversations. Facilitated discussion compares public-sector, financial-services, NGO and corporate perspectives. Each participant develops an application plan based on a current leadership, governance or conduct issue from their workplace.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have experience managing people, projects, budgets, contracts, programmes or governance responsibilities. Familiarity with their employer’s code of conduct, delegation limits, reporting channels and key policies is useful. The course assumes participants can discuss realistic workplace dilemmas and review short case materials. No legal qualification, audit certification, prior ethics training or detailed knowledge of corporate governance standards is required. Participants from public, private and non-profit organisations can apply the methods using their own accountability and regulatory context.

A typical training day

08:30 – 10:30First session
10:30 – 10:45Refreshment break
10:45 – 12:30Second session
12:30 – 13:30Lunch and networking
13:30 – 15:00Third session
15:00 – 15:15Refreshment break
15:15 – 16:30Workshop and daily review

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in East Africa Time, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

  • Instruction by a practitioner facilitator
  • Full course workbook and materials
  • Exercise files, templates and case studies
  • Refreshments and lunch on classroom deliveries
  • Certificate of completion
  • Post-course application plan

Frequently asked questions

Participants should have some management, supervisory, governance, compliance or decision-making responsibility. Prior ethics or corporate governance training is not required, and the course introduces the standards and methods used.

Bring your organisation’s code of conduct, conflict-of-interest policy, speak-up procedure or relevant governance documents if you can share them appropriately. Participants should not bring confidential investigation files, personal data or commercially sensitive evidence.

The course suits senior managers, public officials, board members, compliance leaders, risk professionals, internal auditors and HR leaders. It is most useful for people who set expectations, approve decisions or respond to conduct concerns.

Anti-bribery training focuses primarily on preventing bribery and meeting legal or policy requirements. This course addresses the broader leadership responsibilities behind ethical culture, conflicts, fair decision-making, speak-up, incentives and board oversight.

Participants can use the ethical decision worksheet for current dilemmas, review conflict controls and improve escalation routes for reported concerns. The final action plan identifies practical changes for their team, function or business unit.

The course runs from 08:30 to 16:30 each day, with approximately 6.5 contact hours daily. Time is divided between instructor briefings, case analysis, group work, simulations, discussion and individual application planning.

Questions about this course?

Ask about dates, fees, group bookings or running it for your team. Our training team replies by email.

Ask on WhatsApp info@skillsetdevelopment.com

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