📍  Have you ever worked for someone and felt like every time they called you into their office, your stomach dropped? Like no matter how well you were doing, there was always that lingering fear that something was wrong. That maybe, just maybe, you weren't meeting some unspoken expectation. If you've ever felt that way, I need you to hear this story.

Because it was a defining moment in my career. One that has stuck with me for nearly a decade. And trust me, you're going to want to hear this. It was 2015. I was working for a management company for dental practices. It was the biggest position I'd ever held in my career to that point, and I loved it. I was thriving in a multi unit leadership capacity.

Finally stepping into the role that I felt like I'd always envisioned for myself. I always knew I was meant for more, but I wasn't really sure how I was going to get to more. As I grew into that position, I started to really understand the people around me. I learned who I could trust and who I couldn't. 

I learned who genuinely had my back and who only pretended to. And then there were the ones who I thought were mentors, but turned out to be anything but. I thought I had had it all figured out. I was succeeding. I was making moves. I was showing everyone that they hired the right girl. And then there was my boss.

At the time, I respected this boss more than anything.  They were the one who, in my opinion, they brought me in. They were the one who believed in my potential.  And I genuinely thought that they would always have my back. But I also started to notice things. Things that made me question the dynamics at play.   Maybe this boss had a closer relationship with one of my superiors. That I had originally thought, and for a brief second, I had a hunch something wasn't quite adding up,  but I dismissed it. And after all it wasn't my business, my business was to succeed in my role. My business was to be a great leader. My business was to grow the brand.

And I did.  I took on more responsibilities. I oversaw nearly every practice within the company. My responsibilities grew and with them, my confidence. events. I started feeling like I was on the same level as my superiors. And that's where I went wrong. It wasn't that I thought I was better than them. It wasn't even that I thought I had outgrown my position.

It was that I stopped checking myself. I started to believe that my success alone was enough to protect me until one afternoon at lunch. That changed everything. I was sitting across from my boss at a restaurant. I remember I was drinking iced tea waiting for our appetizer to come. They asked me how I felt about my position and where things were going.

And in that moment I was honest and I said, I don't feel like I'm in alignment. And that's when it happened. They stopped dead in their tracks. Their tone shifted in a way I had never heard before.  Don't ever say that again. I blinked. I was taken back. I fumbled through an apology saying that I didn't mean to offend them.

But they weren't done. Don't ever say that again because our boss believes that we are to all be in alignment. And that is the philosophy here. They went on to explain this whole philosophy about what alignment meant in our organization. And in that moment, I realized something. Saying I wasn't in alignment wasn't just a statement.

It was to them a declaration that I could no longer work there. I left that lunch knowing my time at that company was limited. I had said the wrong thing to the wrong person and it changed everything. And looking back, I don't regret saying it because what I should have been met with that day was not a command to never say those words again.

What a great leader should have said instead was this. Tell me more about what you mean by that. Why do you feel out of alignment? What do we need to do to fix that? Because that's what leadership is.  It's not demanding compliance. It's understanding the people you lead. Alignment in a team doesn't mean forcing everyone to move in the same direction without question.

It means making sure everyone wants to move in the same direction because they believe in the vision. And that can only happen when leadership creates an environment where people feel safe enough to speak up. Alignment is about synchronicity and trust. And the moment a leader dismisses someone's concerns, especially with a statement like, don't ever say that again, they kill that alignment.

If you're new to multi unit leadership, I'll tell you this. I remember that lunch more than anything. I even remember what I ate that day. I remember the restaurant. I remember the weather outside. I remember the car ride to that lunch.

I remember that as soon as we pulled into my office, We were sitting outside in my car and my boss looked at me and made some sort of comment to me furthering my conversation about the use of the word alignment. I remember saying like, I just don't feel like something to that effect.

And then cutting me off and telling me how wrong I was still  how wrong I was to use that word. Never once did that boss ever really want to know why I felt that way. Never once did that boss have my back. Never once.

If you are new to multi unit leadership or even leadership in general and you are feeling out of alignment, I want to give you a few things. that you can do to help guide your leader into being a better leader for you. And I'm taking a pause from my story for a reason. Because I really want to stop here and give you some sort of inkling on what to do next.

Because I think if I would have had these resources, if I would have known this, My world would be different right now, but maybe it all happened exactly the way it was supposed to because I could be here with you still thinking about that very day that someone stopped me in my tracks, didn't let me have a space to speak, didn't allow me to feel the way that I felt and approach that in a really great way.

You are allowed to feel however you feel because they're your emotions. They're your thoughts. They're your things that really happen to you. And I think it's perfectly fine, but I want you to learn to not just say you feel out of alignment, but explain why and offer a possible ways to resolve it. Now, in my situation, I don't know that I even got a second to explain myself.

I think that it was more, you said the words, you're done talking. And now I have the floor.

I want you to learn to ask for clarity.  If your leadership is unclear with you, ask for guidance on vision, expectations, long term goals. In my situation, I don't know that I could have gotten there. And maybe that's me being one sided, like they wronged me.

So I'm stuck there, right? I'm stuck where it's like, Hey, I didn't even get a second to talk about where I was at because you asked me a question and you never let me get it out. Encourage open communication. Leaders need feedback. We do. Help create an environment where both you and your team feel safe to speak up.

If you're a leader, start doing this with your team. As you do it with your team, share how you do it with your team. Your leader needs to know how you lead. Align yourself with core values. Even if you don't agree with everything, you can find ways to connect with the organization's mission because you are the living, breathing person that's the organization.

Each individual person that works there is always representing the brand. You are one of those people. Find a mentor. If your direct leader isn't providing you support, you've got to get it still. You can't just stop there and say, I've got a crappy boss. We've all had them and we've all been them. Find somebody else.

Invest in yourself in that way, because this is a season. This isn't your forever. No matter how confident you are in the role that you're in right now, this isn't where you're going to be 10 years from now. You aren't going to be the same person. You're not going to have the same boss. Even if it's physically the same human, mentally, they're going to change.

They're going to evolve. Things are going to change in you that are going to get to see them in a totally different light. That day I wish I would have thought like this, like, you know what? It's not the end of the world that this happened. And no, I wasn't ever fired from that job. I chose to leave on my own.

And that was the best thing I ever did for myself. Not because I worked for an ungrateful boss, which may or may not be true, but mostly because it allowed me to grow where I was meant to always be. You see there, I wasn't in alignment. I wasn't in alignment because when I reflected on who was good for me in that company. 

There was really only a couple of people. And today I really don't know any of them. Sure. I'm connected still because we have an industry that we're all still kind of a part of, but mostly I don't talk to them. The bosses that I was worried about the weird connection, they went on to have a relationship.

It's wild to me. I can't believe it because they're two of the most polar opposite people I've ever met in my life, but maybe they see something I don't. Either way, who cares? What I'll say is that leaders don't often know how to be leaders until they are coached outside of their own understanding. And one of the most powerful things you can do is learn to find alignment. 

You see saying things are really bad here, saying things are really good here. Those words don't always carry any sort of meaning that will actually propel you forward. But when you learn what alignment means. We are in alignment. We are out of alignment. That was a window into my boss, learning that something needed to be tweaked.

Out of alignment doesn't mean you don't belong at all. When you have a car, and the wheels need to be aligned,  When they're out of alignment, you don't just get rid of it. You take it somewhere and you fix it, right? As leaders, as employees, when we're out of alignment, sometimes you just got to go somewhere to fix it.

And that somewhere means a different leader, a mentor, a coach. Sometimes you need a different set of eyes and ears to see the world that you exist in. As a leader, you are called to be this person. Every time something doesn't work out with an employee, every time something doesn't work out with your boss, does it mean they're a bad boss or a good boss?

It means alignment doesn't exist. I want to challenge you today to use the words alignment or we're not in alignment. You're not bad for saying that. The best thing we can all do with bosses that don't honor us is let them be exactly where they are, because I can't control them. 

There is no part of my world that can control theirs. And for me to try to have any sort of will to change that, I'm not in alignment with where I need to actually be. I can control me. I can control what I say. How I respond, how I react, how I move forward in my life. And you can do the same thing. There was a study I read recently that said highly aligned teams increase revenue by 58 percent and are 72 percent more productive than those who struggle with misalignment.

Why? Because alignment is not about control. It's about clarity. You see teams that understand the why behind what they do, are naturally more engaged and committed. Are you kidding me? Have we been getting it all wrong? Alignment isn't about control. It's about clarity. So when you aren't seeing the vision of where things are at, it doesn't mean you're not on the path still.

You just need a little bit more clarity on what's going on.

This episode today is one I hope you come back to often because just like that day, drinking my iced tea, waiting for our appetizer, when all the things in our conversation changed, when the tonality changed, when how I viewed my boss changed, that defining moment. That was when I knew I wasn't going to be there forever.

You'll have more of those moments in your life and we're going to welcome them because they're going to be future stories that you'll tell others that will help you articulate where they can be as a leader.  You see, you're listening today and I may never meet you in person,  but I am here to tell you that every time you don't have alignment, it is an opportunity for you to gain clarity, to go exactly where you were always meant to be.

You see here in leadership, there's no silver spoon, right? We're not just handed it and it automatically works. Perfect. We're not just getting hired at a job or starting a business or building a brand. And it's just perfect. You're going to be out of alignment. Sometimes no brand new car ever stays perfect forever.

But how you treat that car, how you treat your leadership, it will change everything. I can't end an episode without having our that's a good moment. Our three takeaways from this episode are these leadership is about listening, not controlling.

If someone says they're out of alignment, it's an opportunity to engage, not dismiss. I'm challenging you to take that step today. Two, true alignment is about buy in, not obedience. Teams that are truly aligned believe in the mission. They don't just follow orders. And number three, the best leaders foster safe spaces for real conversations.

People shouldn't be afraid to speak up if they are. The alignment is already broken. At the end of the day, alignment isn't about forcing people to fit a mold. It's about making sure everyone believes in the bigger picture and that only happens when leadership listens. And with that,  📍 I'll catch you guys on the next episode.