An independent assessment of the behavioural, strategic and structural conditions influencing Board effectiveness.
The Governance Architecture Diagnostic™ helps Boards understand how leadership behaviour, judgement, power dynamics and governance arrangements influence the quality of decisions and oversight.
Going beyond conventional governance reviews, the Diagnostic examines the behavioural and organisational dynamics that influence Board judgement, constructive challenge and accountability.
It provides Boards with an independent view of behavioural and governance risks, identifying where decision-making and oversight may be compromised and what practical improvements should be prioritised.
Through a structured assessment, confidential debriefs and practical recommendations, Ethical Governance provides Boards with evidence-based insights to guide meaningful improvement. The Governance Architecture Diagnostic is built on original research and more than 20 years of working with Boards.
Why Boards use the Diagnostic
What you receive from the Governance Architecture Diagnostic
Practical outputs, designed for action.
Every output is explained in a confidential debrief, so your Board leaves knowing what the results mean, where the greatest risks sit and what to do next.
How the Governance Architecture Diagnostic works
Facilitated, confidential and designed to surface what matters.
The Governance Architecture Diagnostic is not a self-serve questionnaire. It is a structured, facilitated assessment, completed individually and confidentially in about 50 minutes. For Boards, each director completes it independently before results are aggregated into a Collective Climate Profile.
01
Scoping conversation
A brief conversation to understand your governance environment, the question driving the engagement, and whether the Diagnostic is for an individual or the whole Board.
02
The Diagnostic
A structured, confidential assessment completed individually in about 50 minutes.
03
Individual debrief
A candid one-to-one conversation about what the results show, where Governance Integrity is at risk and where development priorities lie.
04
Board debrief
Results aggregated into the Collective Climate Profile, with a facilitated Board debrief and clear recommendations. Boards only.
All results are held under strict confidentiality. The Diagnostic is designed to surface what is genuinely useful, not to confirm what Boards already believe about themselves.
Who it is for
For Boards and the leaders who shape them.
For Boards
Boards and governance leaders
“Is our Governance Integrity as strong as we believe it is?”
For individuals
Directors and senior leaders
“How does my judgement hold up when it matters most?”
Is your Board at risk?
Most governance failures do not occur because policies are missing.
Governance is tested by uncertainty, competing priorities, financial pressure and difficult trade-offs. The conditions that precede governance failure rarely appear suddenly. They develop gradually, along recognisable behavioural patterns. These are some of the early warning signs.
Not ready for a full assessment? Try the free Behavioural Risk Self-Assessment →
Why traditional governance reviews are not enough
Structure is necessary. It is not sufficient.
Traditional governance reviews focus on structures, policies, committee arrangements, delegations and compliance. These matter. But governance effectiveness depends on how decisions are made, challenged, escalated and acted upon. The Diagnostic complements traditional reviews by examining the behavioural and strategic dimensions that determine whether governance holds under real-world conditions.
| Traditional review | Governance Architecture Diagnostic |
|---|---|
| Reviews structures | Assesses decision-making |
| Reviews compliance | Assesses governance behaviour |
| Measures what exists | Measures what functions |
| Focuses on policies | Focuses on judgement |
| Looks backwards | Identifies emerging risks |
What the Governance Architecture Diagnostic measures
Seven drivers of Governance Integrity.
Governance Integrity
The capacity of a governance system to keep decisions, actions and oversight aligned with organisational purpose, stakeholder obligations and stated values, particularly under uncertainty, pressure and competing interests.
The Diagnostic assesses seven drivers that determine whether Governance Integrity holds when it is tested. Together, they form the Behavioural Risk Index, which informs the Purpose Integrity Score. Read about the research →
Decision Quality
The degree to which directors recognise and counteract cognitive biases, such as confirmation bias and groupthink, that distort governance judgement.
Performance Under Pressure
The capacity to maintain sound judgement when commercial, competitive or reputational pressure is highest.
Ethical Judgement
The Board’s ability to surface and examine the ethical dimensions of consequential decisions, as a governance discipline and not a compliance exercise.
Stakeholder Stewardship
How consistently stakeholder consequences are included in Board decision-making.
Power and Influence Dynamics
The degree to which Board dynamics are shaped by dominant personalities, deference to authority or social pressure, rather than independent judgement.
Courageous Accountability
The willingness to follow evidence, raise inconvenient questions and hold management to account when challenge is professionally or socially costly.
Risk Escalation Discipline
Whether the Board’s risk framework captures the risks that matter, and whether escalation pathways work in practice, not just on paper.
Where the seven drivers lead
Purpose Integrity Score
For Boards, the score examines whether decisions reflect publicly affirmed values and commitments, or quietly contradict them under pressure. For individual directors, it examines whether judgement holds to stated values when challenge is costly and consensus is easier.
“Does this governance system, and the individuals within it, operate with integrity to the purpose it exists to serve?”
The framework behind it
The seven drivers are examined across the three dimensions of the Osmic Governance Architecture™.
Dimension 01
Leadership Character
How directors exercise judgement under pressure, when the cost of challenge is high and consensus is easier.
Dimension 02
Strategic Judgement
How decisions are made in complex, high-stakes situations, where bias, risk framing and group dynamics shape outcomes.
Dimension 03
Governance Architecture
How information flows, escalates and is framed, and whether structures deliver the transparency and accountability they are designed for.
Begin a confidential conversation.
Whether your Board wants an honest assessment of its Governance Integrity, or you want to understand your own governance judgement, we invite you to reach out.