What Does Alignment in Leadership Development Really Mean?

At our recent Leadership Development Network, hosted by David Mason and Clive Martlew, we explored the idea of alignment in leadership development. It’s a theme that can sound abstract in theory, but when grounded in practice, it has huge implications for how leadership programmes create real impact.

The session opened with David framing the purpose of the Network: to keep things informal yet thought-provoking, combining conversation with peer reflection. Each gathering begins with David posing questions to Clive, before breaking into small groups for deeper discussion and examples from participants. This time, we were delighted to hear from Allison Johnstone from the Scottish Prison Service, who shared her own perspective on alignment in action.

Leader Development vs. Leadership Development

Clive began by revisiting a distinction raised in a previous “Let’s Talk” session: the difference between leader development and leadership development.

• Leader development focuses on individuals. Sometimes this takes the form of an employee benefit – a way to show fairness, boost morale, or reward engagement. Other times it’s more selective, tied to talent management, succession planning and building a strong bench of future leaders.

• Leadership development, on the other hand, is about the wider system – shaping organisational culture, strengthening collective capability, and influencing how leadership is experienced across the business.

  
  

This distinction is crucial, Clive argued, when we think about alignment. Are we aligning individual development to organisational goals, or aligning the organisation’s leadership culture to its future direction?

What Are We Aligning To? The Many Faces of Alignment

At its best, leadership development is not an isolated activity. Clive argued that it should be aligned to four things:

Alignment with strategy – ensuring programmes connect directly to organisational values, culture, and strategic priorities.

Alignment with real business challenges – going beyond abstract strategies to support pressing issues, change programmes, or transformation agendas. When development is tied to live business needs, it carries more urgency and relevance.

Alignment with the chief executive’s “real” agenda — a Leadership Development programme that the CEO sees as a central tool of their organisational change, growth or success strategy will be powerful. CEO expectations can often be implicit or unspoken, but deeply influential in shaping what actually matters. Aligning LD to the CEO’s “real” agenda can therefore be transformative.

Alignment with senior leaders – sustaining conversations with top teams about what they notice, what matters, and how development efforts respond. Senior leadership buy-in and role modelling is important. This consistency, Clive noted, increases the chances of success over time.

Programmes that only link to abstract strategies can feel distant. But when they are aligned to pressing business challenges, and the real expectations of senior leaders they carry urgency, attract resources, and have a better chance of lasting impact.

Clarity on Behaviours

Finally, alignment isn’t just about big strategies. It’s also about clarity on the few critical behaviours leaders are expected to demonstrate. That means:

• Having honest conversations at the top about what all leaders need to do differently.

• Articulating expectations in a simple, repeatable way.

• Spotlighting role models who already embody the desired behaviours.

• Paying consistent attention to those behaviours over time.

This is where alignment meets day-to-day reality. When the top team notices, rewards, and lives the behaviours themselves, leadership development stops being an abstract programme and becomes part of the fabric of organisational life.

What Happens When Alignment is Missing?

When leadership development isn’t connected to strategy or business priorities, the risks are clear:

• Waste and low impact — activity without meaningful outcomes.

• Fads and pet projects — initiatives that respond to the latest crisis or executive whim, but don’t embed.

• Mixed messages — when senior leaders say different things about what good leadership looks like, confusion spreads through the organisation.

A lack of alignment can actively damage culture, breeding cynicism and undermining trust.

The Bottom Line: From Theory to Practice

The conversation highlighted a tension: strategies can feel distant, while day-to-day challenges feel pressing. Successful alignment requires bridging the two – anchoring leadership development both in the organisation’s long-term aspirations and in the immediate work of change and delivery.

Alignment in leadership development is not about ticking a box or attaching programmes to corporate strategies. It’s about:

• Connecting development to live business challenges.

• Understanding and reflecting the unspoken priorities of senior leaders.

• Embedding expectations into culture, systems, and everyday behaviours.

• Holding consistency over time.

Do that, and leadership development moves from being “a good thing to do” to being a real driver of change.