This is Part 2 of our 8-part series helping business leaders navigate today’s economic turbulence with clarity, strategy, and talent alignment. Missed Week 1? [Catch up here].
If economic pressure feels higher than ever, it’s because it is. With tariffs shifting frequently, supply chains under stress, and customers behaving unpredictably, today’s business climate is more than just turbulent — it’s revealing.
In our experience, uncertainty doesn’t create leadership blind spots.
It exposes the ones that were already there.
They vary — but here are the most common ones we see in our work with leadership teams under pressure:
False Alignment
Everyone thinks they’re aligned… until they’re not. Under stress, decisions get challenged, priorities clash, and accountability slips.
Assumed Clarity
The CEO believes the strategy is crystal clear. The VP of Ops interprets it differently. The Sales leader has their own set of marching orders. No one’s wrong — but no one’s truly synced.
Silent Disengagement
Some leaders nod along, then quietly disengage or pursue their own path. It’s not sabotage — it’s a signal that psychological ownership is missing.
Delayed Decision-Making
In times of uncertainty, some leaders freeze instead of lead. The cost of waiting? Lost momentum, confused teams, and missed opportunities.
We’re currently working with several companies who are addressing cost pressures, vendor renegotiations, and customer churn. But in every case, those issues trace back to something deeper: their leadership teams weren’t aligned on the how, why, or what next.
You can’t build resilience on a foundation of fuzziness.
Until leaders are aligned — on objectives, on priorities, and on what success looks like — every downstream effort becomes harder, slower, and riskier.
Ask your leadership team these three questions:
What are our top 3 strategic objectives this quarter?
What do you believe your role is in achieving them?
What’s the biggest risk to our team’s ability to execute?
If the answers vary widely, or reveal hesitation, you don’t have a strategy problem — you have a leadership alignment problem.
That’s exactly why we built our 90-Minute Strategy Alignment Session. It’s designed to surface misalignment, fast — and convert it into action, clarity, and confidence.
In one virtual session, we’ll help your team:
Get to 100% agreement on your key objectives
Map behavioral blind spots using Predictive Index
Create a unified leadership language for decision-making
Risk-free. If you're not satisfied, you don’t pay.
👉 [Book your session here]
Rebuilding Resilience — How to Apply the Baldrige Framework in a Crisis
We’ll walk through how top-performing organizations apply systems thinking and strategic agility to navigate volatility without sacrificing sustainability.