Page 233 - Fearless Leadership

220 FEARLESS LEADERSHIP

Alignment is not a concept; it is a learned behavior.

Many leaders fail to see that the behavior of alignment is the Holy Grail
for optimizing leadership and organizational capacity. The quest to achieve
alignment is hopeless without the extraordinary way in which committed
partners work together. They actively overcome blind spots and rigorously
intervene to achieve breakthroughs of major proportion.
Achieving emotional and intellectual alignment allows leaders to turn
business strategy into focused delivery. This chapter focuses on how to
achieve real and sustainable alignment. You will learn what holds leaders
and teams back, and how to master two critical applications: the five lev-
els of alignment and the three decision types. We designed these tools to
provide leaders with an effective process for dismantling individual pref-
erences so they could achieve team solidarity and lasting alignment.
Then we cover rules of engagement—meeting protocol used by high per-
formance teams.

WHAT IT MEANS TO AUTHENTICALLY ALIGN

What makes fearless leaders so extraordinary is their courage to bring cog-
nitive and emotional intelligence to every aspect of leadership. In deci-
sion making, fearless leaders give their full support—heart and mind—and
insist on full commitment from others. This exceptional level of owner-
ship is rare and powerful.
As a fearless leader, you cannot commit to keeping everyone happy and
making sure that people always agree. That is not your job. Your job is to
make sure people have an opportunity to express their concerns, view-
points, and ideas, and then fully align with what is best for the enterprise.
If you rely on group agreement, you will be disappointed. Agreement is
fleeting. Its temporary nature leaves you with unsustainable action and
the half-measure of compromise. But with authentic alignment you gain
sustainable commitment and coordinated action even when people do
not agree.
Authentic alignment is an indispensable leadership behavior that
requires teams to learn how to interact in a new way where they set aside
their personal preferences, political agendas, and pet projects. These