Six Critical Leadership Activities: Aligning

The following list identifies six activities that I consider “critical” to successful leadership. These activities have helped me become and remain a more effective and efficient leader here at Remote DBA Experts.

1. Strategize
2. Align
3. Energize
4. Enable
5. Actualize
6. Recognize

In my last post, I defined what I meant by Strategizing and described what it entails.  In this post, I will do the same with the next Critical Leadership Activity: Aligning.  If you’ve been keeping up with this blog series, I have mentioned that Strategizing and Aligning were activities I used to give better meaning to the process of crafting, adopting and adapting strategy.

What is Aligning?

Aligning is the process of ensuring that everything has the strongest possible connection with your aims.   It involves all the aspects, resources and individuals necessary to accomplish aims.  The ultimate goal of alignment is efficient and effective utilization of human energies (physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual) and financial resources.  When things are out of alignment, all energy and resources are wasted.   There are so many natural and mechanical analogies and metaphors that can be used to visualize the effects and consequences of misalignment. Pick one you are familiar with and think about it.  As you will see bellow, Aligning is critical!

What does Aligning Entail?

Alignment is an on-going activity and it spans throughout all phases and activities of the Accomplishment Process.  Aligning should start by ensuring that aims are in agreement with individual and organizational energy, resources, competencies, and capabilities. Crafting strategies for aims that are not aligned with one or more of these items is most likely a futile effort.

Assuming that the aforementioned alignment has been achieved, you can move to the next alignment stages.  As you will see, alignment efforts are on-going, never-ending, and critical during each of the phases of the Strategizing activity:

1. Crafting Strategy
2. Adopting Strategy
3. Adapting Strategy

During the crafting phase, you make sure that the Key Stakeholders:

• Understand the strategic process and expected outcomes
• Buy-in to the rationale
• Are fully engaged (involved and contributing) to strategy development
• Have fully optimized their Motivational Energy:
  • They believe they can accomplish their part in the time-frame expected
  • They understand the benefits and rewards of accomplishment
  • The benefits and rewards are important/meaningful to them

Proper alignment involves further considerations such as:

• The right resources are allocated properly to strategic accomplishment
• All the critical data necessary to make the best strategic decisions are available

During the strategy adoption phase, strategies and their ensuing actions must be aligned.  At this stage, actions and resources come together to execute the plan. Timely, efficient, and effective action and proper application of allocated resources must be ensured.  Here are a few things to look for:

• Are we on target?
• Are we heading in the right or expected direction?
• Is everyone doing what they are supposed to per “plan”
• Are we on schedule?
• Are results achieved as expected?
• Is everyone still on-board?
• Has anything changed?

This third phase is when you adapt or adjust your strategy to fit the changing conditions or emerging circumstances that have arisen since the strategy was crafted and adopted.   Strategies are dynamic and quite fluid.   The original plan will most likely change along the way.  On-going changes are normal in the process of accomplishing.  These changes precipitate the need for realignment.  Not only do you need to ensure people (you and others) are doing what you are supposed to, you must also make sure strategy changes get translated into realignment of resources and action.

Aligning is a tough process that requires relentless attention and constant action.  Great ideas, aims, and strategies can easily and quickly fail due to poor alignment.  It is hard, but it is CRITICAL!

Great leaders and highly successful individuals work hard to stay aligned and keep others in alignment with the key aims and strategies.

Got alignment?

The BEST is Yet to Come!

Epi Torres, CEO