What to Do When Everything Feels Disconnected Between Vision and Actions?
n this edition of Winning Leadership, we explore a critical factor in driving success: alignment. Specifically, how leadership alignment around vision, values, and strategy can be the difference between achieving your mission and falling short.
The Power of Clarity: Aligning Vision, Values, and Execution
Leadership alignment often falters when there’s a disconnect between the company’s overarching vision and the daily actions taken by teams. As leaders, we know that without clear alignment, even the best strategies can unravel as they make their way through layers of the organization. This newsletter focuses on how to influence leadership alignment to ensure your mission is carried out, especially in the face of challenges.
1. Start with the Vision: Define and Communicate
Clear vision is the foundation. Leaders must be able to articulate the company’s long-term goals in a way that resonates with all levels of the organization. This vision should be inspiring but also grounded in reality, providing direction during both prosperous and challenging times.
To align leadership around a shared vision, it’s critical that everyone not only understands it but also believes in it. Every leader should be able to speak to the vision clearly, and more importantly, connect it to their team’s daily work.
Leadership Tip: Ensure your vision is not just written in corporate documents, but communicated regularly in meetings, conversations, and decisions. Tie every strategic initiative back to the larger vision, reinforcing how today’s actions lead to tomorrow’s success.
Coaching Question: How often are you communicating the vision to your leadership team, and do they know how to translate it into action?
2. Bridge the Gap Between Strategy and Execution
Even the most well-defined strategy can fail if it’s not executed properly. Alignment happens when your leadership team takes the vision and translates it into actionable strategies that the entire organization can follow.
Leaders must consistently evaluate whether the work being done on the ground reflects the strategic goals of the company. If there’s misalignment between strategy and execution, it’s often because the objectives weren’t communicated clearly or operational realities weren’t considered when developing the plan.
Leadership Insight: Periodic reviews are essential to ensure that your strategic priorities are being executed at every level. Create check-in points to evaluate if the strategy is still relevant and if your teams are aligned in their actions.
Coaching Exercise: Schedule regular strategy-execution alignment meetings. In these sessions, leaders from across departments should openly discuss how current projects are contributing to the vision. This ensures accountability and allows you to address any misalignment quickly.
3. Align on Values: The Guiding Force
Vision and strategy are essential, but without values to guide decisions, execution can easily go off course. Values provide the moral compass for your company, ensuring that leaders make decisions that reflect not only the company’s goals but its core principles.
Leadership alignment requires more than just talking about values—it involves modeling them in every decision and interaction. When leaders consistently act in ways that align with the company’s values, it sends a strong message to the rest of the organization.
Leadership Tip: Review your company’s core values with your leadership team. Ask if these values are truly being reflected in their decision-making processes. If they aren’t, explore why there’s a gap and how to close it.
Coaching Reflection: How well do your daily decisions align with your company’s core values? What actions can you take to ensure your team is living out those values?
4. Influence Through Clarity and Communication
One of the biggest responsibilities of a leader is to influence alignment. Influence is achieved through clarity and constant communication. As a leader, you must influence other leaders to stay aligned by constantly reinforcing how their decisions, behaviors, and initiatives align with the company’s vision and values.
Leadership Tip: Set up regular touchpoints with your leadership team to discuss not just tactical updates, but how their work aligns with the larger vision. Reinforce the importance of staying true to the company’s values when tackling difficult challenges.
Coaching Exercise: In your next leadership meeting, ask each leader to share how their team’s current work aligns with the company’s vision and values. This creates transparency, accountability, and ensures alignment is not just assumed but actively pursued.
5. Drive Accountability and Ownership
Alignment without accountability is incomplete. Every leader must take ownership of both the vision and the execution. Leaders at every level should feel responsible not only for the outcomes of their teams but also for ensuring that their actions and decisions reflect the company’s strategic direction.
Leadership Insight: Create a culture where leaders feel empowered to challenge misalignment and bring solutions forward. When your leadership team feels accountable for more than just their department’s metrics but for the broader success of the company, alignment becomes a shared responsibility.
Coaching Question: How are you holding your leadership team accountable for staying aligned with the company’s mission, and how are they holding their teams accountable?
Final Thoughts: Leadership Alignment in Challenging Times
Clear alignment among your leadership team is the difference between navigating challenges successfully and being overwhelmed by them. Leaders who are aligned on the company’s vision, strategy, and values can guide their teams through uncertainty with confidence.