Why changing priorities, evolving technology, and new ways of working make leadership alignment worth revisiting before 2027.
As 2026 draws to a close, many executive teams have already completed their planning for the coming year. Some have developed or reaffirmed a three- to five-year strategic plan. Others have established an annual business plan with specific priorities, performance expectations, and commitments for 2027. Both are consequential exercises that require thoughtful decisions about where the organization is headed and what it intends to accomplish.
But there is a question that deserves as much attention as the plan itself: How confident are you that the alignment established during planning still holds today?
Planning creates direction, but alignment enables people to move in that direction together. The challenge is that alignment is not permanent. Circumstances change, operational demands compete for attention, and leaders make decisions based on the priorities of their respective areas of responsibility. Over time, what appeared to be shared understanding can quietly evolve into different interpretations of what matters most.
Agreement Does Not Always Mean Alignment
Consider a leadership team that agrees improving the customer experience is a critical priority for 2027. The operations leader may focus on efficiency, the technology leader on automation, human resources on employee engagement, and finance on managing costs. Each perspective may be appropriate, but unless the team shares an understanding of the intended outcome, those individual efforts may not produce the collective result everyone expects.
This is where the distinction between agreement and alignment becomes important. Agreement establishes that people support a direction. Alignment requires clarity about what success looks like, how competing priorities will be reconciled, and what each leader must contribute to achieve the desired outcome.
A team can agree on the goal and still be misaligned on what it takes to achieve it.
The Way We Work Is Changing. Is Our Alignment Keeping Pace?
Two developments make this question particularly relevant as organizations prepare for 2027.
Artificial intelligence is changing how work gets done, how decisions are informed, and what leaders expect from their teams. Yet adoption, understanding, and comfort with AI often vary across an organization. Some leaders may see opportunities to accelerate productivity, while others are navigating questions about capabilities, risks, and responsibilities. These differences do not necessarily signal disagreement about the organization’s goals, but they can create very different assumptions about how those goals will be achieved.
At the same time, hybrid work continues to influence how colleagues interact. While flexibility offers meaningful benefits, opportunities for informal conversations, spontaneous problem-solving, and personal connection may be less predictable when teams are not routinely together. Technology makes communication easier, but communicating more frequently does not necessarily mean people understand one another better.
Neither AI nor hybrid work inherently creates misalignment. Both, however, reinforce the importance of making time for intentional conversations about priorities, expectations, and shared commitments.
Bringing people together is not the same as bringing people into alignment. Whether your team works together in person every day or only occasionally, what matters is the quality of the conversations taking place.
Three Questions Worth Revisiting Before 2027
Rather than automatically using the remaining weeks of the year to develop additional goals or revisit the entire planning process, consider investing time in a focused conversation about the alignment behind your existing commitments.
1. Are we still aligned on what matters most in 2027 and what success actually looks like?
If each member of your leadership team independently described the organization’s most important priorities and what successful execution would look like, how consistent would their responses be? Differences are not necessarily a problem, but unexplored differences in expectations can create competing decisions, fragmented efforts, and disappointing outcomes.
2. Where might our understanding, priorities, or expectations have quietly drifted apart?
The assumptions that shaped your strategic or annual business plan may have changed. New technologies, resource constraints, shifting customer expectations, or evolving ways of working can alter how individual leaders view their responsibilities. Creating an environment where those differences can be surfaced and discussed allows the team to address potential misalignment before it affects performance.
3. What do we need from one another and from leadership to deliver on our commitments?
This may be the most consequential question. Leadership teams spend considerable time establishing what needs to be accomplished, but do they spend enough time discussing what people need to succeed? The answers may reveal unresolved decisions, organizational barriers, competing priorities, or opportunities for greater collaboration. Just as importantly, asking demonstrates that leadership is committed not simply to setting expectations, but to listening and helping the team achieve them.
The Value of One Meaningful Day
Imagine bringing your leadership team together for a single day before year-end or early in 2027. Not to create another plan, review countless presentations, or revisit decisions that have already been made, but to examine whether everyone still shares the same understanding of what needs to happen next.
A thoughtfully designed working session can help leaders reaffirm priorities, identify where alignment may have shifted, clarify interdependencies, and establish the commitments needed to move forward. It also creates an opportunity for people to raise concerns, challenge assumptions, and contribute perspectives that might otherwise remain unheard.
The value of that day should not be measured by the number of topics discussed or ideas captured. It should be measured by what the team understands, decides, and commits to doing differently as a result.
Before You Turn the Page
As you reflect on 2026, celebrate what your organization has accomplished and recognize the contributions that made those achievements possible. But before entering 2027, consider whether the alignment you believe exists has been meaningfully tested since your planning discussions.
Whether you are executing a multiyear strategic plan or an annual business plan, the question is the same: Are we moving forward with a genuinely shared understanding of what success requires, or are we simply assuming everyone is still on the same page?
That conversation may be one of the most valuable investments you make in the year ahead.
Make Your Next Leadership Meeting Count
At Hive Partners, we design and facilitate leadership working sessions that help organizations move beyond discussion toward shared understanding, consequential decisions, and actionable commitments.
If your team could benefit from a focused day to reaffirm alignment and clarify what successful execution requires, I’d welcome the opportunity to discuss what that might look like.
Schedule a 2027 Leadership Alignment Conversation with Alex Calicchia
Alex Calicchia
Founder & President | Hive Partners