About alignment
“The language of alignment is everywhere. The practise is not.”
Zora Artis
What is alignment?
In an aligned organisation, everyone from the C-Suite to the frontline is united by:
Shared clarity
about where the organisation is going and how their work contributes.
“We know what we need to do and why.”
Shared accountability
for how the organisation delivers together.
“It’s up to us.”
Shared commitment
to their organisation, customers, and colleagues… even when things get hard.
“We’re all in this together.”
You can tell when you’re leading an aligned organisation. “You can see, feel and sense it: a clear connection between…
- Commitments made and results delivered
- Strategy and priorities, translating into day-to-day work
- The C-Suite, leaders and the frontline
- What people say, do and believe
- Internal culture and external reputation.
There’s an alignment gap and it isn’t moving
An overwhelming number of leaders agree. Strategic alignment matters… particularly today. It holds organisations together at a time of accelerating change and uncertainty.
Despite this, enabling alignment is proving elusive. This results in a misalignment tax: a steady drain on capacity, speed, time and relationships that most organisations have learned to absorb rather than address.
Even more unsettling, there are signs that the gap isn’t shifting, despite the growing focus on alignment.
The alignment gap in 2018
(Artis and Aspland. Strategic Alignment Study1)
74%
strongly agree that strategic alignment is important to the achivement of goals.
13%
strongly agree that their organisations are aligned.
The alignment gap in 2025
(Johathan Trevor, Oxford Strategic Alignment Survey2)
72%
strongly agree that strategic alignment is important.
14%
strongly agree their enterprise is strategically aligned.
1: Zora Artis and Wayne Aspland, ‘Strategic alignment – how communicators can change the face of leadership’, 2018
2: Trevor, Jonathan, Oxford Strategic Alignment Study, 2025 and ‘What Leaders Get Wrong About Strategic Alignment’, HBR 15 January 2026
Read our latest report…
From Groupthink to Governance.
Why is alignment so challenged? What does closing the gap require?
To find out, we interviewed 55 senior leaders from five continents. CEOs, Chiefs of Staff and leaders in strategy, HR, operations and communication.
Our third strategic alignment study surfaces an uncomfortable truth. In most organisations, alignment is assumed rather than enabled. It’s an exercise in groupthink rather than a serious leadership discipline.
We need to rethink the way we enable alignment: from groupthink to governance. That requires four fundamental shifts:
- From a group of leaders to a leadership group
- From proxies to proof.
- From cascade to conversations.
- From annual to agile.
The full paper sets out what these shifts require in practice.
Our earlier reports
From Groupthink to Governance is our third proprietary research study into the power of alignment.
You can access the earlier reports here.
The Road to Alignment (2020):
- Lessons from 2020 for alignment and communication. Qualitative research with 27 senior communication leaders.
Strategic Alignment: How Communicators Can Change the Face of Leadership (2018):
- Global-first study of strategic alignment and the role of communication and leadership.
About alignment: frequently asked questions
Alignment is when people across an organisation share a genuine understanding of where it’s going and why, and that shows up in how they make decisions and do their work. In an aligned organisation, people are committed to the organisation’s goals, which are clearly reflected in their:
- Priorities, day-to-day work, structure and conversations.
- Accountability, including reward and recognition frameworks.
- Capabilities, including personal development plans and decision rights.
The first is structural. Direction must be clear and reinforced through how decisions are made and resources allocated. When the structure sends different signals from what the strategy says, people read the structure.
The second is behavioural. Leaders at every level must model the direction in their own conduct.
The third is relational. People commit to directions they feel a genuine ownership of. You cannot communicate your way to genuine shared understanding. You have to create the conditions for it.
Alignment is what lets an organisation move at pace and change course quickly… the ability to “Move as One™. Without it, organisations lose speed, trust and execution capacity even when the strategy itself is sound. 91% of leaders say strategic alignment is fundamental to their organisation’s goals, yet only 13% believe their own organisation is highly aligned.
The misalignment tax is the steady, often invisible drain on capacity, speed, time and relationships that organisations absorb when they aren’t genuinely aligned. It’s the cost of silos, duplicated effort, rework, slipping trust and stalled execution… problems many organisations treat as normal rather than as symptoms of a solvable alignment gap.
Misalignment is common. 91% of leaders say strategic alignment is fundamental to their goals, but only 13% believe their own organisation is highly aligned. Other measures tell the same story. Only 56% of leaders feel their executive team works effectively together, and just 27% of teams understand the strategic priorities and how their work contributes to them.
Agreement is people nodding along in a meeting. Alignment is those same people making consistent decisions and trade-offs once they’re back at their desks. Clear Leaders describes “agreement without alignment” as false consensus. In other words, commitments that sound settled in the room but quietly break down in practice and don’t actually shape how work gets done.
Zora Artis of Artis Advisory and Wayne Aspland have published three proprietary global studies on strategic alignment as part of their Clear Leaders research collaboration. The series began with Strategic Alignment: How Communicators Can Change the Face of Leadership (2018, 227 respondents), followed by The Road to Alignment (2020, 27 senior communication leaders), and From Groupthink to Governance (2026, 55 senior leader interviews across five continents).
It’s the third strategic alignment study from Zora Artis’ and Wayne Aspland’s Clear Leaders research collaboration. The report is based on interviews with 55 senior leaders (including CEOs and Chiefs of Staff) across five continents. The report examines why alignment stays elusive despite being a stated priority. It argues organisations need four shifts: from a group of leaders to a leadership group, from proxies to proof, from cascade to conversations, and from annual to agile.
Click the links to download the full From Groupthink to Governance report or its summary infographic. You can also access Zora’s and Wayne’s earlier reports at Strategic Alignment: How Communicators Can Change the Face of Leadership and The Road to Alignment.
Teams that think, work and act better, together. Organisations that Move as One™.