This is confidential, please don't share it... What role does governance play?

I was having coffee with some colleagues in Riyadh last week, chatting about governance and compliance, when the conversation turned to a topic that is rarely discussed openly:

Why does confidentiality so often break down at senior levels?

Our first thought was: perhaps senior people simply cannot keep secrets.

But the conversation soon moved to a more serious point. In senior roles, the boundaries of what is considered confidential can become blurred. Access to sensitive information is sometimes confused with seniority, and perhaps with power.

Information is shared through informal conversations, forwarded “for awareness”, or discussed with people who may have authority but no a defined role or legitimate need to know.

Unfortunately, that is not harmless oversight. It is a governance failure and, probably, a breach of confidentiality terms.

Organisations routinely ask employees to sign confidentiality pledges, acknowledgements and NDAs, yet they are not enforced. These documents are not merely compliance formalities; they are protection mechanisms. So why are senior leaders sometimes treated as though these obligations and controls do not apply equally to them?

Good governance requires sensitive information to be shared according to role, purpose and genuine need, not hierarchy or curiosity.

In this new era where media knows before employees, as part of their transformation journey, more companies are looking at changing that culture. They are looking to 'modernise' how confidential information is dealt with internally, prevent sharing and make employees accountable, which is definitely the way forward. Slowly, we will get there.

Torres Global Partners