Georgina, this sentence in your last point really grabbed me.

"A frightened and apprehensive executive can easily lead an organisation to a downfall."

It reminded me of some statistics I just read in the book "Primal Leadership" here recently.  The authors of speak about how much impact a leader's mood, among other things, can have on the organizational climate.  They go on to say that 50-70% of employees' perception of organizational climate comes from the boss, and how people feel about their work climate can impact revenue and performance by 20-30%.

Nothing new and shocking about that, but I'm so glad you wrote this post, much of which supports this data, and I'm so glad you are in a position to impact executives in this direction.