Organizations that prioritize their health—by achieving sharp alignment, flawless execution, and relentless renewal—don’t just survive; they thrive in the face of complexity. With a foundation of alignment, organizations introduce clarity at every level. They consistently deliver exceptional value and sustain long-term success.
There are three outcomes behind alignment, rooted in the Organizational Health Index model, that have helped organizations achieve success: direction, work environment, and leadership.
Direction
How powerfully does the organization rally behind a clear and compelling vision, map out the path to achieve it, and inspire everyone to understand their role in making it a reality?
To achieve strong alignment, an organization must start with a clear, compelling vision of where it wants and needs to go. Then, it must be brought to life with a well-defined roadmap outlining how to get there and connecting employees’ daily work to the broader journey. Effective direction sets strategic priorities, communicates with clarity, and resonates at every level.
When employees understand how their contributions drive the vision forward, alignment becomes a powerful force for progress. In our research, organizations that communicate a clear and compelling vision for the future are over four times more likely to be healthy than those that don’t.*
One retailer faced a complex challenge—integrating three distinct retail models into a single, unified organization to compete more effectively. Rather than jumping straight into operational changes, senior leadership invested significant time in defining a cultural aspiration that clarified the organization’s vision, values, and purpose.
This clarity became embedded into every aspect of the organization—redesigning systems and structures to align with the vision and modeling desired behaviors as leaders engaged with their teams. This created a ripple effect; everyone understood what they were building, how they would get there, and how to contribute.
Work environment
Do the organization’s values and everyday behaviors ignite a culture where people collaborate, innovate, and perform at their best?
A productive work environment relies on clear norms and rituals that shape how individuals, teams, and leaders operate. It creates transparency. It balances a healthy sense of competition with open, honest dialogue. And it ensures the right people are involved at the right time to move work forward efficiently and effectively.
In one organization, leaders demonstrated their commitment to a healthier, more transparent work environment by starting with taking symbolic actions that set the tone for change. The CEO led from the front, sharing key areas for personal improvement. Leaders “walked the walk” and demonstrated their commitment to openness, transparency, and advancement.
Initiatives that cascaded through the organization empowered employees to take ownership of their development and results. Leadership reinforced this shift by establishing clear performance expectations, fostering open dialogue, and celebrating progress along the way.
These actions led to tangible improvements in productivity and profitability. By prioritizing transparency and accountability, leaders created an environment where employees felt empowered to contribute, collaborate, and deliver results.
Leadership
Does the organization have exceptional leaders, consistently across all levels, who inspire confidence, make smart decisions, and boldly steer the organization toward lasting success?
Capable leadership sits at the center of the Organizational Health Index model; it is core to all three axes of alignment, execution, and renewal. Effective leaders shape their organizations around them. In an increasingly complex environment, how do the best leaders navigate these ecosystems? Leaders of thriving organizations excel by taking decisive action to drive progress, empowering those closest to the work to make meaningful contributions, and fostering collaboration by involving employees in decisions that directly affect them. They inspire their teams to aim higher and achieve more, while providing steadfast support, demonstrating empathy, and showing genuine care for their people.
Exceptional leadership today is inherently situational, requiring flexible adaptation across the full suite of leader behaviors. Adaptive leaders meet the unique needs of their organizations and teams in the moment, creating clarity, deepening commitment, clearing roadblocks, and building resilience.
Consider a consumer product company that recognized its traditional "command and control" leadership style was holding it back. It set out to redefine what great leadership looked like, creating a set of key behaviors and expectations that aligned with long-term strategy and emphasized collaboration, adaptability, and empowerment.
To do this, the company launched a leadership academy, designed to reach leaders at all levels in diverse and accessible ways. The program combined live, interactive sessions with self-paced digital content, enabling over 2,000 leaders to learn at their own pace and engage in real-time discussions. In doing so, the company created a stronger, more unified leadership community capable of driving sustainable success.
Call to action
Alignment is the difference between thriving and merely surviving in today’s relentless pace of change. Without the outcomes of direction, leadership, and work environment, even the best strategies will falter. The question is not whether alignment matters, but whether an organization has the determination to build it, sustain it, and turn it into action—or allow the chaos of change to dictate its path.
The authors wish to thank Nicolette Rainone and Nitin Ramaseshan for their contributions to this blog post.
*McKinsey OrgHealth Refresh Survey of 3,940 English-speaking employees across the United States (2,068 participants), the United Kingdom (525 participants), Canada (519 participants), Australia (433 participants), and Singapore (395 participants), conducted from May to July 2023.
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This blog post is part of a four-part series on the Organizational Health Index, exploring the core axes of organizational health—alignment, execution, and renewal—and sharing lessons learned from organizations that achieved health and performance gains.