In the last quarter of each year, I’m reminded of a scenario I’ve seen unfold in so many organizations. A leadership team gathers, works through their priorities for the year ahead and walks out of the meeting feeling confident that the direction is set.
Then, after each department moves ahead with outlining their initiatives and the leaders come back together to discuss progress, they realize that several people had very different interpretations of what was agreed upon. This disconnect is part of the reason why 61% of executives say at least half the time they spend making decisions is ineffective. [1]
I don’t think this situation happens because leaders aren’t paying close enough attention to what’s going on in the meeting room. I believe it stems from intent-impact gaps, where what’s said is perceived in different ways by different people.
What Planning Season Reveals
When there are misunderstandings in strategic planning, pause and ask:
Was this leadership team ever truly aligned, or did it just sound aligned?
Agreement can happen in a moment. Alignment has to hold up over time.
Two leaders in the same room can think they’re on the same page about what it means to accelerate growth, only to discover weeks later that they had differing ideas about how that priority showed up in their department’s day-to-day actions, what trade-offs were acceptable and what success would look like.
Planning season isn’t to blame for communication gaps; it often unearths existing ones.
The Causes of Leadership Misalignment
Research has shown 67% of well-formulated strategies fail due to poor execution. [2] A few patterns are usually at play when leaders seem unified, yet are not really aligned the moment execution starts:
- They agreed on the destination; however, they never discussed the route each of them would take to get there.
- They used shorthand verbiage (“aggressive growth,” “operational excellence”) without ever defining what that means to each person at the table.
- They viewed the planning meeting as the finish line, rather than the starting point for how decisions would get made downstream.
- They assumed that there was shared understanding rather than checking for clarity.
These scenarios happen often when a team hasn’t created norms [3] or a way to talk about how they each interpret key initiatives, weigh risks and communicate decisions. Without those working agreements, “alignment” is just a temporary truce that dissolves the moment people scatter back to their silos [4].
How to Avoid Execution Missteps
At first glance, you may think that a stricter follow-up regimen is the solution to the problem. That can help spot discrepancies sooner; however, it doesn’t get to the root cause.
To prevent leadership misalignment during strategic planning, give your team a shared language to talk about their perspectives and surface differences in opinion and interpretation. That way, misunderstandings can be named while it’s still early enough to course-correct (and not six weeks into execution).
A “shared language” is a working framework that teams use all year to:
- Understand how people approach work so they can proactively identify potential disconnects and communicate for alignment.
- Recognize strengths and blind spots in problem-solving to understand what gaps need to be addressed in the planning process.
- Build a vocabulary to productively surface and manage disagreements.
- At Emergenetics [5], we use our Thinking and Behavioral Attributes for exactly this purpose. Leaders learn about the thinking styles they and their colleagues naturally gravitate towards and the ways their expressiveness, assertiveness and flexibility impact their approach.
Using the seven Attributes as a shared language, executives can identify differences in how they evaluate a priority, weigh information, communicate their thoughts and ideas as well as take action. That vocabulary is what allows a team to say, “I think we’re solving this challenge in two different ways,” instead of discovering it after a missed deadline.
Building a Shared Language into Planning Season
You don’t need to overhaul your process to start closing this gap. A few additions can do a lot of work:
- Before priorities are finalized, have each leader describe, in their own words, what the priority means, its success metrics and how they’d approach execution. Compare notes before assuming agreement.
- Use a shared framework, like the Emergenetics Attributes, to name where the team is likely to interpret objectives or follow-through differently, so those gaps get discussed pre-emptively.
- Schedule a structured check-in midway through the planning cycle, not just at the end, to ask whether desired outcomes are tracking with what was agreed upon.
- Revisit the priorities and action steps regularly throughout the year. A goal that is only discussed at the start of the year won’t hold up under the pressure of implementation.
Companies whose top executive teams are aligned and working effectively together are almost 2X as likely to achieve an above-median financial performance. [6] By harnessing a framework that offers a common vocabulary, your leaders can make strategic planning the place where varying perspectives are discussed and a shared direction is strengthened, instead of one where misalignment is hidden.
Reframing the Strategic Planning Session
I’ve heard executives describe planning season as the moment when the « real work » starts. I’d push back on that framing. While it may be tempting to separate “the work” from the way things get done, how your team collaborates and communicates will directly influence whether or not you reach your goals.
An executive team session focused on building a shared language for how leaders think, decide and communicate isn’t an add-on to strategic planning; it’s as essential as your financial forecast or market data. Skip it, and you have a higher likelihood of moving misalignment into execution, where it becomes harder and more costly to address. Prioritize it, and you give leaders a strategy with a strong foundation for turning shared objectives into meaningful progress.
Set your leadership team up for success and book a customizable executive session with Emergenetics, designed to meet their needs.
Interested in learning more? Fill out our form below.
FAQs
Q: What causes leadership misalignment?
Leadership misalignment occurs when leaders appear to agree on a goal or decision, yet have different interpretations of what it means, how it should be carried out or what achievement looks like. These differences can remain hidden until teams begin putting the strategy into action.
Q: How can leadership teams build alignment during strategic planning?
Start by creating space for leaders to explain how they interpret priorities, define success and how they would approach execution. A shared framework, such as the Emergenetics Attributes, can also give leaders a common language for identifying differences in Thinking and Behavioral styles so that executives can proactively discuss their preferences for distinct approaches and surface potential intent-impact gaps before implementing a plan.
Q: How can an executive session support strategic planning?
A facilitated executive session can help leaders surface perspectives, clarify assumptions and establish shared ways of thinking, communicating and making decisions. When these conversations happen during strategic planning, teams can address potential misalignment before it affects execution.