Good Intentions Don’t Equal Alignment
Most leaders believe they are aligned with their teams simply because everyone shares good intentions. People nod in meetings, affirm the mission statement, and profess to be “on the same page.” But alignment is not a feeling. It is not agreement at the level of words. Alignment is about whether the critical factors that determine outcomes are truly connected and moving in the same direction.
We define alignment as the state where all necessary elements —people, processes, resources, and goals —are functioning both independently and collectively at their optimal level toward a shared purpose. Without that stated, no amount of goodwill will produce the outcomes leaders expect.
The Silent Cost of Misalignment 💸
Misalignment doesn’t always announce itself with drama. Often, it hides beneath the surface:
Teams work incredibly hard but still fall short of results.
Departments duplicate efforts or move in conflicting directions.
Strategy documents look polished, but don’t translate into daily behavior.
Leaders assume resistance when the real problem is a lack of clarity.
This is why misalignment is so costly. It quietly drains progress, wasting resources and morale at the same time. Organizations may think they are making progress, but they are really spinning their wheels in place.
Why Good Intentions Fail 🤦♂️
The flaw of relying on good intentions is that they don’t address the factors necessary for thriving. In Progression Theory, thriving outcomes only emerge when resources are directed toward the right factors, the essential conditions that make progress possible.
Leaders often fail because they assume effort equals alignment. Teams work late, budgets are allocated, and everyone wants success. Yet if those efforts are not tied to the right factors, the results will not materialize. It is the organizational equivalent of rowing hard but in opposite directions.
Contrast as a Teacher 🔴
Positive Leadership introduces the concept of contrast, the state we experience when alignment is absent. Contrast can look like drama, inefficiency, or subtle underperformance. Leaders often misinterpret contrast as individual failure (“Who’s to blame?”) rather than systemic misalignment (“What’s out of alignment?”).
This shift in perspective is critical. When leaders recognize contrast as feedback, they stop punishing people for systemic problems and instead use it as a compass pointing toward what needs to be realigned.
Thinking About an Alignment Mirage 💯🚀🎯
One of the most dangerous illusions in leadership can be thought of as an alignment mirage, the assumption that because people share good intentions, they must also share clarity. In reality, alignment requires explicit agreement on three levels (what we call POM: Purpose, Outcomes, Methods):
Purpose: What are we focused on, and why does it matter?
Outcomes: What does thriving look like for this focus?
Methods: What strategies, tactics, and operations will get us there?
If a team cannot articulate these three layers in the same language, alignment is not present, no matter how committed or well-meaning the individuals are.
Leadership’s Role in Alignment 💪
Leaders carry a unique responsibility for alignment. Unlike authority, which ensures mandatory effort, leadership is the activity that evokes discretionary effort, the energy people give because they want to, not because they have to. Discretionary effort only emerges when people feel aligned with a clear purpose and outcomes.
This means leaders must go beyond inspiring good feelings. They must translate intent into clarity, clarity into strategy, and strategy into actions that align across the system.
How Misalignment Shows Up in Daily Work 😵💫
Meetings that recycle the same issues because people aren’t working from a shared definition of success.
Projects that stall because departments interpret “success” differently.
Confusion over priorities because the team doesn’t know which outcomes matter most.
Burnout occurs because people work hard without seeing meaningful progress.
In each of these cases, the problem is not effort or intent, it’s alignment.
The Leader’s Checklist for True Alignment 📋
To avoid the alignment trap, leaders can ask three questions regularly:
Is our purpose clear? Can every team member state what we are focused on and why it matters?
Are our outcomes explicit? Do we all understand what thriving looks like in this context, beyond mere survival?
Are our methods aligned? Are we channeling resources into strategies and actions that move us toward those outcomes?
When these answers are vague or inconsistent, alignment has been lost.
Photo by Edz Norton on Unsplash
Progress Over Perfection 📈
Finally, it’s important to emphasize that alignment is never a state of permanent perfection. Circumstances change, environments shift, and people drift. Misalignment is inevitable, but it doesn’t have to be fatal. In Progression Theory, perfection is never possible, but progression is always possible.
The true test of leadership is not avoiding misalignment altogether but recognizing it quickly, using contrast as feedback, and continually realigning people and resources toward thriving.
Good intentions are valuable; they signal commitment and goodwill. But they are not enough. Without alignment, good intentions become wasted energy. Leaders who confuse intent with alignment risk exhausting their teams without moving them forward.
The organizations that thrive are those where leaders take responsibility for alignment every day, clarifying purpose, naming outcomes, and ensuring methods connect effort to progress. That’s the difference between looking busy and actually moving forward.
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