What Alignment Really Means To Businesses & Leadership

One of the most persistent frustrations I see with founders and leadership teams is an almost indiscnerible one. It's also usually their own faults, but I can't come out and say that to them right off the bat. It's that feeling that things kinda work, or work well enough. Growth isn’t flailing, people aren’t too anxious or unhappy. But conversations tend to stall on certain topics. People feel uneasy around a certain subject that they know management is avoiding. Decisions that should be straightforward become difficult. There's always one hurdle they just can't get past, no matter how many reports, no matter how hard or how late everyone works.

I lived this first hand when I began a new role as Director of Social Media and PR many, many years ago. There were a lot of things working well at this company, and a lot of room to grow. Leadership was obsessed with cash flow, CACs, ad spend, LTV--all very important metrics, no doubt. But at least half of the company wanted a better customer experience, better quality products, stronger brand marketing that built a relationship with the customer over time. And I noticed that at least half of my colleagues were miserable, too. Maybe more like 75% of them, if I'm being honest.

This particular company wanted the types of sales that came from long term stable growth, a strong relationship with a dedicated audience, the reputation that comes from a quality-focused product strategy. In fact, I was hired because they said they wanted to mix in some brand marketing amongst their tactics. But leadership was focused on this month, even this week's report read-out. If CACs were too high that week, all long-term strategies went out the window to get those numbers in an acceptable range. Employees were stressed trying to do both a good job and a cheap job. Looking busy was typically rewarded over doing quality work. There's a reason everyone I knew there, all brilliant and hard working people, now work elsewhere.

When I watch this play out across different companies and contexts, it’s rarely because leaders lack talent or effort. It's even less rarely due to the team not working hard. What is missing is alignment, not as a buzzword, but as a shared, operational reality.

While it might feel like an abstract concept, alignment matters in very concrete ways. Clarity of goals, roles, and processes, for example, has been linked to significantly better organizational performance, not just in profit figures but in operational effectiveness; unconfused people tend to perform better. (Source: Cogent Business & Management). Another body of research looking specifically at cultural alignment confirmed that when an organization’s culture, values, and stated strategy are working in concert, employees are more satisfied and the environment becomes more fertile for performance gains, innovation, and collaboration. (Source: Journal of Organizational Culture, Communications and Conflict) The point is, I'm not making this up; the research backs my lived experience as an employee and an advisor.

So, what does alignment actually look like? It is when the things a company says matter, its priorities, values, and strategic direction, all work together. People should know what their role is, and how it connects to the organization's broader mission. That mission and the tactics around it should be reflective of external market realities. And when times get tough, leadership doesn't panic and make short-sighted decisions that undermine that alignment just so that this week's reports don't make them look bad.

When these elements are coherent, performance improves. When they diverge, the workarounds begin.

But here is the nuance executives often miss: alignment is not static and it is not inherent. Sometimes it isn't even obvious. It requires a continuous practice of naming assumptions, reconciling competing priorities, and helping people see not just what they are doing, but why they are doing it in a particular way. If you're a founder or leader reading this, that's your job. If you're an individual contributor reading this, we'll address how to manage alignment upward another time.

Don't freak out, but this is where the emotional side of leadership comes in. You can't always demonstrate the power of alignment via charts, frameworks, or strategic architecture. Alignment becomes present and notable when people understand their part of the whole, when leadership consistently signals that to them, and how they reconcile their own sense of agency within the company’s (clearly stated) direction.

Employees experience a kind of cognitive dissonance when the stated goals or values of an organization do not match the behaviors they see from leadership or peers. Companies that talk about innovation but punish risk-taking, or that speak of customer centricity but reward internal politics, create environments where people stop trusting the signals. This disengagement shows up as indifference, churn, and conflict that feels out of proportion to the issues at hand. (Source: Value Congruence in Organizations)

That is why I won't stop shouting from the rooftops that alignment is a business strategy, not a soft cultural aspiration. It determines whether resources are mobilized in the same direction, whether leaders can make decisions with confidence, and whether teams can execute at the speed the market demands.

True alignment does not happen by accident because a leader is naturally gifted at it. You have to think about alignment the same as you would any other leadership skill; it has to be built, honed, and constantly refined just like writing, public speaking, or knowing what all the numbers in a balance sheet even mean. It requires leaders to wrestle with trade-offs they would rather leave unstated. It invites leaders to consider not just the what and how of strategy but the who and why of their organization. It requires CEOs to be extremely self-aware, strategy-aware, and hold their executive teams and other leaders to the same standard.

In my work with founders and CEOs, the shift usually occurs when this pattern gets named explicitly: what usually looks like a problem around one individual, one decision, one market problem, tends to be a larger issue around consistency, around choosing a path and making aligned activity choices to stay the course.

Resolution begins when a leadership team moves past the illusion of alignment and starts to build it deliberately, acknowledging both its structural and human dimensions. Because when alignment is real, confusion decreases, friction drops, and the company can actually deliver on what it set out to do in a sustainable fashion. By the way, employees will be happier too.

You can probably guess where this is going. I'm a strategic advisor helping founders and executives achieve this type of alignment. Reach out to learn more about how we can work together.