The session featured Thabo Twalo, Chief Underwriting Officer at Santam Broker Solutions and former President of the Insurance Institute of Gauteng (IIG), who drew on more than 20 years in insurance and reinsurance to explore what purposeful leadership demands when certainty disappears.
Purpose makes difficult work clearer
Twalo’s central message was simple: turbulence makes purpose more important, not less. Purpose does not remove complexity or guarantee an easy path. It helps a leader separate the noise from the signal and remain focused on what must endure.
He experienced this while leading in two demanding arenas. At Santam, his purpose was larger than restoring the performance of commercial property insurance. He saw the sustainability of the class itself as being at stake, at a time when several market participants were exiting, selling or failing. At the IIG, his role was not merely to deliver a successful presidential year. He was the custodian of an institution that had existed for 111 years and needed to remain relevant through COVID-19, economic pressures and uncertainty about the return of in-person events.
For him, this is one of the most useful disciplines in turbulent times: define the purpose broadly enough to survive changing circumstances, but clearly enough to guide daily choices. Purpose stands above the immediate context.
Learn from the past, sense the present and imagine the future
Twalo also challenged leaders to reconsider how they interpret risk. Experience is valuable, but it can become a blind spot when it is treated as a complete map of the future.
He reflected on what he describes as one of his biggest underwriting mistakes: relying too heavily on previous patterns without sufficiently recognising that the surrounding context had changed. The lesson was not to discard history, but to hold three perspectives at the same time. Leaders must recall the past, remain alert to the present and imagine a future that has not yet unfolded.
That discipline is increasingly important in insurance. Climate change means historical models cannot, on their own, dictate today’s response. Technology, social media, geopolitics, economic pressure and changing customer expectations can combine in ways that traditional assumptions do not anticipate. Clients are also looking for value throughout the insurance lifecycle, rather than a product that becomes visible only after an emergency.
Purpose provides direction, but curiosity, humility and adaptability help leaders update the route.
Showing up
During his IIG presidency, Twalo adopted #ShowUp as the theme for the year. It appeared on banners, mailers, speeches and event décor, but gradually became a personal leadership mantra.
In a period when the economy was under pressure, COVID was still a reality, and people remained hesitant about returning to live events, “showing up” meant projecting confidence without pretending that conditions were easy. It meant being present, positive, prepared and consistent. Twalo later realised that people were watching how he responded, drawing confidence not only from his words but from his conduct.
A no is information, not a verdict
Purposeful leadership does not eliminate rejection. Twalo’s experience canvassing support for IIG initiatives meant presenting to chief executives, brokers and service providers, often without obtaining the commitment he wanted.
One meeting became a lasting lesson. After a carefully prepared presentation to the CEO of a prominent insurer, the CEO asked why his company should support the IIG rather than similar organisations elsewhere in the country. Twalo explained the collaboration among industry bodies and referred to joint initiatives, including work with GWII. Yet he could see that sponsorship would not follow.
Afterwards, he recognised that he had concentrated on covering every point in his presentation rather than discovering the one or two priorities that mattered most to the person across the table.
The deeper insight was a mismatch of purpose. Twalo was contributing to the IIG for the good of the industry. The CEO had to consider the return on his company’s funds. The organisation ultimately did not sponsor IIG events, although it sent several employees on the IIG international trip. It was not rejecting the IIG. It was choosing to invest in employee development rather than event sponsorship.
The episode changed how Twalo viewed a no. Sometimes there is no, and even an excellent presentation may not change that. A no can nevertheless refine the proposition, deepen understanding and preserve a relationship. Outcomes are rarely binary: the sponsorship request failed, but the learning succeeded, and support later emerged in a different form.
“As leaders, we often want to be heard and understood,” he observed. “But sometimes our job is to listen and understand.”
Do not become the work
Uncertainty can tempt leaders to demand more information before making a decision. Teams then spend significant time producing and reconciling reports in the hope of giving one person complete certainty. The leader becomes the bottleneck, or as Twalo puts it, “the leader becomes the work.”
Leading multidisciplinary teams at Santam reinforced a different approach. Twalo was not the technical expert in every discipline he led, nor did he need to be. His responsibility was to remain custodian of the purpose, provide the resources required, help capable leaders think through difficult problems, manage expectations and remove organisational obstacles.
This requires enough humility to accept that the people closest to the problem may understand it better, and enough discipline not to take over work that belongs to them. It also means fighting the necessary organisational battles on the team’s behalf and ensuring that team members receive credit for what they achieve.
Confidence does not come from a leader pretending to have every answer. It comes from clarity of purpose, sound judgement, honest communication and visible trust in the people doing the work.
Own failure and protect what still matters
Resilience is tested most clearly when something has gone wrong. One of the toughest moments of Twalo’s IIG presidency came when inadequate planning compromised a signature event. Invitations had been issued, a guest speaker had been booked, and the sponsor had committed funds. Following many meetings while on a family holiday in the Drakensberg, he and the IIG executive team concluded that the event could not responsibly proceed.
Twalo had to tell the main sponsor, someone who had supported him repeatedly, that the IIG had dropped the ball. The decision damaged the relationship and placed future sponsorship at risk. Proceeding might have avoided the immediate embarrassment, but it would have produced a mediocre event and potentially caused greater harm.
Leading through turbulence can be simple, but never easy
Twalo rejects the idea that balance remains perfectly intact during every crisis. At different moments, work, family or personal wellbeing may absorb the strain. Leaders need to understand what restores their energy and allow the different parts of their lives to support one another rather than maintaining artificial separation.
His concluding advice to GWII members was to get out of their own way. The more leadership becomes a test of personal worth, individual brilliance or having every piece of information, the harder it becomes to move. The more leaders focus on purpose, the environment, lessons from the past and the people who must travel with them, the greater the possibility of progress.
A word of thanks
The session concluded with a cocktail hour, networking and meaningful conversations among attendees.
GWII extends its sincere thanks to Thabo Twalo for sharing his experiences, insights and perspectives on leading with purpose in turbulent times, and for contributing to such an engaging and thought-provoking session.
GWII also thanks main sponsor Santam, co-sponsor Bryte Insurance, table sponsors Firedart Engineering Underwriting Managers and Sasria, and logistical sponsors FAnews and Santam Specialist Solutions for their contributions to the success of the event.
Thank you to all who attended and contributed to another successful Trailblazers Leaderwalk.
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