2. When Leadership Teams Are Not Truly Aligned
For more than twenty years, Patrick Lencioni has written about how the success or failure of an organization is often determined by the way its leadership team operates. In The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, he argues that when a leadership team fails to function as a real team, the consequences eventually ripple throughout the entire organization.
I have explored the topic of leadership alignment several times before. I have written about the signs that indicate a leadership team is not aligned and about the impact this can have on the wider organization.
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This article approaches the same issue from a different angle: what happens to strategy when leadership team members support the overall direction but interpret it differently.
In many organizations, the strategy is clear. The goals are well defined. Leaders have participated in creating it and genuinely support the direction.
Yet a few months later, the same topics keep resurfacing in leadership meetings. Different functions advocate different priorities. Some projects move quickly while others stall, and reaching common decisions becomes increasingly difficult.
In my experience, it is quite common for leaders to believe they are aligned when, in reality, they interpret the same strategic messages in different ways.
Strategy Takes on a Different Meaning in Every Leader's Mind
A few years ago, I worked with a leadership team where decisions were made quickly during strategic workshops. Throughout the discussions, everyone used the same concepts: growth, customer centricity, innovation, and efficiency.
However, when the conversation turned to specific investment and resource allocation decisions, it became clear that the leaders attached very different meanings to those concepts.
For one leader, growth meant entering new markets. For another, it meant serving existing customers more deeply and with higher quality. One leader viewed digitalization as the top priority, while another focused primarily on operational stability.
All of these perspectives were logical.
The problem was that these differences never surfaced openly. Gradually, multiple interpretations of the strategy began to coexist within the organization.
Strategy Becomes Reality Through Decisions
In Good Strategy / Bad Strategy, Richard Rumelt argues that a good strategy helps leaders determine what to focus on, which trade-offs to make, and what to let go of.
Part of a strategy's power lies in making choices clear.
For an organization, strategy does not become real through a document. It becomes real through the decisions made every day. Through where resources are allocated, which initiatives move forward, which investments receive attention, and which opportunities remain on hold.
When leaders interpret the strategic direction differently, those decisions will follow different logics
Why Does the Illusion of Alignment Emerge?
Partly because leaders often use concepts that sound clear and self-explanatory during strategic discussions.
Customer centricity. Innovation. Digitalization. Growth.
The problem is that these words rarely provide guidance on which concrete decisions should be made differently.
Until leadership teams discuss what these concepts actually mean in practice, each person fills them with meaning based on their own experience, responsibilities, and perspective.
Leadership Behavior Sets the Pattern
When it comes to strategy execution, leadership behavior matters more than almost anything else.
If leaders prioritize the interests of their own functions, the rest of the organization will do the same. If they communicate different priorities, middle managers will naturally move in different directions.
Employees do not learn what matters most from the strategy document.
They learn it from their leaders' decisions and communication.
The Role of Middle Management
This is why strategy execution does not happen primarily in executive meetings.
Middle managers and their teams translate strategic goals into day-to-day operations. They decide where time, attention, and capacity are invested.
When they receive conflicting messages from senior leaders, operational challenges naturally take precedence.
Over time, strategy begins to fade into the background.
How Can You Recognize a Lack of Alignment?
The signs are usually easy to spot.
The same topics repeatedly return to leadership forums. Different functions push different priorities. Some projects receive continuous support while others become recurring subjects of debate. Middle managers are uncertain about what truly matters.
In many cases, these symptoms appear long before business results start to decline.
How Can You Tell When Real Alignment Exists?
Interestingly, the first changes are rarely visible in the numbers.
Decisions become faster. Fewer issues need to be reopened. Priorities become more stable. Middle managers make decisions with greater confidence.
The organization spends less energy coordinating itself.
A Simple Alignment Test
Ask each member of your leadership team to answer the following question individually:
"What are the three decisions or priorities that you approach differently today because of the strategy compared to one year ago?"
The answers will quickly reveal whether there is a genuinely shared understanding behind the strategy.
My experience working with leadership teams shows that strategy execution is rarely hindered by the strategy itself.
Far more often, difficulties arise because leaders interpret priorities, decisions, responsibilities, or ways of working differently.
Real alignment does not come from everyone using the same words.
Real alignment comes from the same decision-making logic showing up consistently in everyday operations.