By
Rick Forbus, PhD
It seems that the ability to align people to a clear vision, or a change-strategy is one of the most compelling of all the leadership competencies. Alignment takes tactical, communication and relational abilities. Alignment in a multi-cultural organization takes hard skills, emotional strength and observational oversight. Because of an ever-changing economy, the new normal for employee head counts, and, the rampant exercise of merger and acquisition as a business strategy, alignment is a leadership skill imperative.
Alignment can mean positioning people in their best “seats on the bus.” It also can include alliance-building techniques and strategies. Alignment, when done as a team design project, could manifest as a configuration of like talent or divergent talent. Most alignment efforts should target a clearly defined objective, but, there are times re-alignment may be more of a “socialization” project that is used as a discovery of the creativity or ideation quotient of this newly formed group.
Authenticity is the alignment of head, mouth, heart, and feet – thinking, saying, feeling, and doing the same thing – consistently. This builds trust, and followers love leaders they can trust.
Vision
Great leaders learn how to ascertain a clear vision for themselves before ever trying to align others to it. Visioning, as a verb, can be learned, if, not already intuitive for a leader. In my work as a coach, I still encourage those clients that are intuitive in visioning to establish several methodologies (not just one) to discipline them to use structure and innovation. Innovation comes a couple of ways. One way is free-thinking, blue-sky sessions and brainstorming. The other way allows for all of those ideation techniques, but, uses structure to keep inside the guard rails, which can make visioning more efficient. I find logic models work well for quick structure and they are simple enough to not quench the creative “spirit” when visioning alone or with a team.
Just as your car runs more smoothly and requires less energy to go faster and farther when the wheels are in perfect alignment, you perform better when your thoughts, feelings, emotions, goals, and values are in balance.
Vision requires much thought time before transferring it to others. Short changing the alone-thinking time may cause flaws to emerge later when trying to align others. If the team is synergistic, then, they should be challenging you on your vision. When the vision or objective is ready to go “live,” then, alignment strategies are needed.
Alignment
It is not ground breaking for me to submit that we are not aligning robots but people to our vision. (Well, I guess we could be aligning robots…but, not a consideration in this article.) At the very core of alignment comes this leadership truth: we align human behaviors.
Alignment of aims, purpose and values between staff, teams and organization is the most fundamental aspect of motivation. The better the alignment and personal association with organizational aims, the better the platform for motivation.
Unknown
True alignment, to a plan or an idea, requires humans to be either offered a “way” to align without a leader involved, or, with the leadership of another, formally or informally. These two team scenarios could be defined like this:
1. They achieve organic alignment to an objective because a team has developed a synergistic approach to their work. They work without management or leadership, but, by purpose and a compelling objective.
2. They achieve alignment to an objective because the team has been provided a system or structure by which to achieve alignment. The team works with gentle leadership or management, informally or formally, to provide encouragement and confidence to complete the task.
In the end, it may not matter so much how a team gets something done, except for the cost of time and energy used to get there. Also, when a team discovers the power of divergence and relational strength from their discoveries, alignment, then, provides a more lingering positive outcome than mere alignment, through strong structure and leadership, could.
Rick Forbus, PhD – Executive Coach and Advisor
CEO – Trove, Inc.
www.troveinc.com
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