The article examines what some may regard as the intangible elements of public leadership in South Africa. The absolutely intangible elements of public leadership are difficult to pin down, yet their presence is felt when they are there as is the case when they are absent. One could argue that the simmering tensions arising out of popular discontent, sometimes finding expression in isolated incidents of public protest and sometimes in performances by opposition parties in parliament, attest to the fact that there is something missing in the edifice of public leadership. That which is missing is the presence of the intangible aspects of public leadership that this article seeks to examine. The article invokes the significance of the twin notions of conscience and consciousness as intangible imperatives whose absence is creating challenges in public leadership in South Africa's young democracy. The article takes the reader back to