When I Realized I Was the System
For a long time, I believed that if values were defined clearly enough, they could guide behavior even when I wasn’t in the room.
I relied on them heavily as a leader.
Values gave my team a way to make decisions without me. If we defined them behaviorally, they became a shared set of rules. They anchored conversations, feedback, and debriefs.
And for a while, it worked. Not perfectly, but consistently enough that we were moving in the right direction.
Then I stepped out of that leadership role and into another.
And I watched the alignment I had worked so hard to build start to unravel.
Slowly at first. Then more noticeably.
It was painful to watch.
This wasn’t the first time it had happened. I had built strong, values-aligned teams before, moved on, and seen things drift over time. But this time, I couldn’t ignore it.
I needed to understand why.
When I stepped back, I realized something uncomfortable.
I had focused on values and behavior. But I hadn’t fully accounted for the systems shaping both.
Because the truth was, reinforcement lived in my day-to-day interactions. In what I noticed, what I praised, what I corrected, and what I followed up on.
But there was something else I was doing that I hadn’t named before.
I was constantly translating.
The organization already had multiple systems in place, each with its own pressures and priorities.
Speed. Efficiency. Output. Competing demands.
My role, without fully realizing it, was to sit in between those pressures and my team. To interpret them, buffer them, and redirect them back toward our values.
I was helping the team navigate competing contingencies and still act in alignment.
And then I left.
From a behavioral science perspective, this outcome makes sense.
Behavior follows reinforcement. When multiple sources of reinforcement are in play, behavior tends to follow the strongest or most immediate one.
So when I stepped away, two things happened at once.
The reinforcement I was providing disappeared.
And the buffer between competing pressures and my team disappeared with it.
The systems themselves did not change. The pressures did not go away. But the translation layer was gone.
Without that, drift was inevitable.
That’s when I could finally name it: I was the system.
This pattern shows up across organizations.
Leaders carry alignment through effort. Through conversations, reminders, course correction, and encouragement. But also through constant interpretation and translation of competing demands.
It can work for a time. But it does not sustain.
This is why alignment often feels exhausting.
Not because people do not care. Not because they do not know what to do.
But because the environment around them is not consistently supporting the behavior their values require.
The shift for me was realizing that alignment is not something a person maintains.
It is something that must be designed into the system.
When values, behavior, and systems are aligned, the right behaviors are not just expected. They are supported, reinforced, and more likely to be repeated, even in the presence of competing pressures.
When something feels off in an organization, the question is not: “What do people need to do differently?”
A more useful starting point is:
What behavior is being reinforced right now?
What pressures are shaping that reinforcement?
Where is alignment dependent on a person instead of a system?
If you want to assess this in your own organization, start with one value you talk about often.
What behavior would demonstrate that value in action?
Where is that behavior supported by your systems?
Where is it made more difficult?
What behavior is being reinforced instead?
Where is alignment currently dependent on someone holding it together?
Most of the time, it is not a people problem.
It is a system problem.
And systems can be designed to better support the outcomes you are trying to achieve.
If this is something you are seeing in your organization, it may be worth taking a closer look at where alignment is being carried by people instead of supported by design.
