As we enter the 2026/27 financial year, many organisations have recently completed their strategic planning process and are shifting their focus towards execution. Over the past few months, much of our work at Leadwell & Succeed has centred on supporting executive teams with business planning, strategic priorities and workforce considerations for the year ahead.
It is one of the times of the year I enjoy most. There is a natural opportunity to pause, reflect on what has been achieved, learn from what has not gone according to plan and determine where the organisation needs to focus next. While every organisation's priorities are unique, there is one topic that consistently emerges during these conversations: alignment.
Interestingly, when leadership teams talk about alignment, the discussion is often framed around priorities. Are we focused on the right things? Are we allocating resources appropriately? Are we holding people accountable for delivery?
These are important questions. However, I have come to believe that alignment rarely breaks down because leaders disagree on the priorities themselves.
More often, alignment breaks down because leaders hold different interpretations of what those priorities actually mean.
Throughout my work with executive teams, I have observed a pattern that repeats itself with surprising consistency. The strategy process is thorough. The conversations are thoughtful. Decisions are debated and challenged before a direction is agreed upon. By the time the leadership team leaves the room, there is genuine confidence that everyone is aligned.
Yet several months later, something begins to shift.
Leaders continue to support the strategy, but decisions start moving in different directions. Resources become contested. Functional priorities begin competing for attention. Teams become increasingly focused on immediate pressures rather than long-term outcomes.
From the outside, it can appear as though the organisation has lost discipline or focus.
In my experience, something else is usually happening.
When I look beneath the surface, I rarely find disagreement about the strategy itself. What I find is that people have attached different meanings to the same words. While everyone may have agreed to the strategic priorities, they have not necessarily developed the same understanding of what the organisation is ultimately trying to become.
This distinction is subtle, but important.
Agreement can often be achieved during a planning workshop. Shared understanding takes much longer to build.
A leadership team may agree that growth is a priority, but what does growth mean? Is it market expansion? Increased profitability? Greater customer impact? Stronger organisational capability? In many cases, leaders walk away with different assumptions, each shaped by their own professional experience, responsibilities and functional lens.
None of these perspectives are wrong. In fact, diversity of thinking is one of the strengths of a high-performing leadership team.
The challenge emerges when those perspectives are never brought together into a genuinely shared view of the future.
When that shared understanding is absent, leaders naturally default to protecting and advancing what sits closest to them. Sales focuses on revenue. Operations focuses on efficiency. Finance focuses on sustainability. People and Culture focuses on capability. Each leader is acting rationally, but the organisation slowly begins to experience fragmentation because there is no common anchor holding those decisions together.
What I have learned over the years is that strategy alone is rarely enough to create alignment.
The leadership teams that sustain alignment over time are not necessarily the ones with the most sophisticated strategic plans. They are the ones that have spent time building a shared understanding of what success looks like and why it matters.
That conversation sits beneath the strategy.
It is not a discussion about initiatives, milestones or KPIs. It is a conversation about identity and aspiration. What are we trying to become? Why does that future matter? What role does each function play in helping us get there?
These questions can feel less urgent than operational delivery. Yet they are often the very conversations that determine whether a strategy remains alive long after the planning process has concluded.
I have seen a noticeable shift when leadership teams invest time in building this level of shared understanding. Discussions become less territorial and more enterprise-focused. Trade-offs become easier because decisions are assessed against a common purpose rather than competing priorities. Leaders become more willing to redirect resources towards organisational outcomes rather than functional interests.
Most importantly, alignment becomes more resilient.
The organisation is still faced with unexpected challenges, changing market conditions and competing demands. The difference is that leaders have a shared reference point to guide their decisions when those pressures emerge.
The strategy has not necessarily changed. The organisation's ability to execute it has.
As we begin another financial year, I believe there is a question worth considering within every leadership team.
Not whether everyone agrees on the strategic priorities.
Rather, whether everyone shares the same understanding of what the organisation is trying to become.
Because alignment is not created when leaders agree on a plan.
It is created when leaders develop a shared understanding of the future they are building together.
When that happens, strategy stops being an annual exercise and becomes a framework for decision-making, collaboration and execution throughout the year.
And in an environment where organisations are constantly being asked to adapt and respond to change, that may be one of the most valuable capabilities a leadership team can develop.
Silvia Silva
Founder | CEO ā€“ Leadwell & Succeed
Strategic HR Advisor | Leadership Strategist
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