When Misalignment Becomes a System Problem

Every leader eventually discovers that misalignment is rarely a single-point failure. It is a system issue - layered, compounding, and cascading through an organisation long before it shows up as a missed target, a fractured culture, or an exhausted team. Misalignment begins quietly, but over time it gathers pressure the way stress accumulates in a structure. And when desire exceeds capacity at any level - in the leader, the organisation, the culture, the team, or the individual - the strain doesn’t stay contained. It spreads.

At the top, misalignment often begins when a leader’s ambition outpaces their awareness. That is where expectations drift from capability, where strategy stretches beyond operational reality, and where goals leap ahead of readiness. This gap creates a pressure that moves downward through the business:

The business takes on strategies it cannot operationalise.

The culture strains under expectations it cannot uphold.

The team attempts to deliver progress without the systems to support it.

The individual carries goals they are not yet equipped for.

And because people feel pressure differently to systems, misalignment often becomes emotional long before it becomes visible. What begins as a structural issue becomes personal - frustration, confusion, fear, disengagement. The system cracks where the pressure is greatest, not necessarily where it began.

Alignment reverses this pattern. It rebuilds the system from the inside out - restoring capacity where desire is high, recalibrating desire where capacity is low, and bringing integrity back to the entire ecosystem.

I learned this truth in the hardest possible way.

When I stepped into the role of CEO at Dictionary.com, I believed I was prepared. I was ambitious, capable, and deeply committed to the brand. But I had entered a system already stretched thin - and I didn’t yet have the awareness to see the layers of misalignment beneath my feet.

The corporate owners wanted efficiency and rationalisation. The team wanted stability and familiarity. I wanted innovation, impact, and meaningful change. We were all operating from different constructs, each with a desire that exceeded the system’s capacity to hold it. And because I didn’t yet understand the nature of misalignment, I tried to push through it with logic, rigour, and relentless effort. I tightened my grip. I rationalised decisions. I moved people around like pieces on a chessboard.

But pressure doesn’t respond to force - it responds to truth.

Twelve months into the role, I found myself in a quiet conference room being confronted gently but directly by two people I trusted: our VP of HR and my executive coach. Their words were kind, but the message was devastating. They had concerns. I wasn’t doing well. I had lost the trust of my team.

Women in intense meeting

I knew they were right. I had been living on the edge for months. Misalignment wasn’t just around me - it was inside me. My desire to succeed had far exceeded my emotional capacity to hold the strain of the role. And because the pressure had nowhere else to go, it collapsed inward.

I broke down in that conference room - a full panic attack I couldn’t hide or contain. It was the moment misalignment became rupture.

Looking back, the rupture didn’t come from a single failure. It came from accumulated tension across every layer of the system. Leadership desire without awareness. Strategic ambition without organisational capacity. Cultural expectations without structures to support them. Team pressure without clarity. Individuals stretched beyond readiness.

Misalignment is a layered failure. And alignment is a layered repair.

Like a geological fault line, pressure builds long before the rupture. The crack appears where the system is weakest - not necessarily where the pressure began. And just like tectonic plates, the work isn’t to patch the crack. It’s to rebalance the forces underneath.

That moment at Dictionary.com changed me. It forced me to understand misalignment not as a leadership flaw, but as a systemic truth. And it gave rise to the work I do today - helping leaders recognise the early signs of strain, rebuild capacity where it’s needed, and bring desire and capability back into equilibrium.

Because aligned organisations don’t avoid pressure - they distribute it.

They don’t eliminate ambition - they support it.

And they don’t wait for a rupture - they respond to the tremors.

Where in your business is pressure quietly accumulating - and what layer of the system is calling for alignment before it becomes a fault line?