Executive Drift: The Silent Erosion of Leadership Momentum

Your executive team is not dysfunctional. Meetings are professional. Strategies are agreed. Decisions are documented. And yet something is wrong. Execution feels heavier than it should. Progress slows without clear cause. Conversations stay polite, but outcomes weaken.

This is Executive Drift—the invisible space between what leaders think they've aligned around and what they actually believe. It is not a sudden breakdown. It is systemic decay that unfolds quietly, compounding over months until leadership momentum erodes beyond immediate recognition.

The stakes are significant: Organizations experiencing Executive Drift see execution timelines extend by 36%, decision-making slow by up to 40%, and high performers disengage at rates 2x higher than aligned teams. Yet the most dangerous aspect is that drift rarely appears in dashboards until outcomes have already deteriorated.

This white paper explores:

• The Hidden Economics of Drift: Quantifying the true cost of leadership misalignment
• Why Familiar Fixes Fail: Understanding the limitations of traditional interventions
• The Drift-Resilient Framework: A systemic approach to maintaining execution integrity
• Drift Symptoms: How to detect drift early, before momentum is permanently lost

The difference between organizations that sustain execution and those that slowly lose it is rarely talent or strategy. It is the willingness to see what is happening beneath the surface—and to act before metrics force the conversation.