Strategic Leadership and The 5 Realms of Organizational Alignment

/ Human Resources, Leadership / By

In nearly every organizational and cultural transformation I’ve facilitated there has been at least some lack of cohesion at the executive level: different definitions of culture, different ideas of leadership and little to no actual accountability to ensure alignment. Strategic leadership requires a common definition of success, clear expectations across roles and a measurement system to ensure alignment. With Uncommon Strategic Leadership, we address…

The 5 Realms of Alignment:

  1. Mission – What is the entity here to do?
  2. Vision – What will the entity be in order to achieve the mission?
  3. Strategy – How will the entity become the vision?
  4. Execution – Who will do what by when to see the strategy through?
  5. Performance – What individual contribution is required?

The greater the clarity in each of these realms, the greater the alignment and the greater the success of the organization. Of course this is easier said than done but if we take small, practical and measurable steps in each realm, we can make a big difference in overall alignment. Take for instance…

The Strategy Realm:

  • If the vision is to be achieved 5 years from now…
    Describe in as much detail as possible what needs to be accomplished in 2.5 years in order to be on track to that goal.
  • Now describe (again in detail) what needs to be accomplished by end of next year in order to be on track to that half way mark.
  • Finally, what will you need to plan in the upcoming budgeting cycle to fund the activities you just laid out to reach that quarter way mark

That final bullet is typically where leadership teams panic as they realize that 5 years is just around the corner and we need to get our stuff together if we have any hope of making any of this happen anywhere besides in our dreams. But it sure does create a bit of alignment when we’re all looking at the same measuring stick of time and at the same finite bucket of money.

As HR leaders, we need to be asking these questions. What does success look like? How will we know? What will we see more of or less of? Why and by how much? These become metrics to which we can hold people accountable. These become milestones we can use to chart progress. These become the connections that align people to the overarching purpose.

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