“Are we aligned?”

It’s one of the most common questions in leadership meetings. It’s also one of the most meaningless. Because people can say yes while meaning three different things.

I’ve sat in too many rooms where alignment was declared and then immediately undone the moment people returned to their teams.

Alignment, I’ve learned, is not agreement. It’s commitment to the same trade-offs.

Most leaders avoid naming trade-offs because trade-offs create winners and losers. Trade-offs force a decision. Trade-offs expose power.

So instead, they pursue a softer version. Everyone nods. Everyone leaves with their own interpretation. Everyone stays polite.

Then execution fails, and leaders call it resistance, or capability, or culture.

In coaching work, this shows up as frustration. A leader says, “My team isn’t aligned.” What they often mean is, “My team hasn’t accepted the same priorities I have, and I haven’t created the conditions for a real decision.”

This is one reason I like framing alignment as an operational conversation rather than a motivational one.

A simple reflection I often share with leaders: if you can’t clearly state what you’re deprioritizing, you don’t have alignment. You have optimism.

This is where CoIQChange becomes useful. It’s not about adding another model. It’s about increasing the organization’s competence to make trade-offs without drama.

If you’re serious about building a coaching culture, you eventually have to coach leaders on decision clarity, not just interpersonal skill. Because without decision clarity, coaching becomes therapy for systems that refuse to choose.

If your organization keeps “aligning” without moving, it might be time to stop asking whether you’re aligned and start asking what you’re willing to stop doing.