The Alignment Trap: Why Agreement Is A Leader’s Biggest Red Flag

For Julie Nguyen Sivanthaphanith, leadership across cultures isn’t about adjusting style — it’s about rethinking what alignment, trust, and execution actually mean.

After two decades working across France, China, and Vietnam, and now advising global leaders through Keystoners, she has seen a recurring pattern: what looks like progress on the surface often breaks down the moment execution begins.

In fast-growing markets like Vietnam, context doesn’t sit in the background. It actively shapes how decisions are interpreted, carried, and acted upon. And for leaders stepping into these environments, that gap between intention and reality is where most of the real work begins.

When a Meeting Feels Aligned, It Doesn’t Mean Anything Will Move

Q: Take us into a defining moment — was there a time early in your work across Vietnam or Asia where a leadership decision didn’t land as expected? What did that experience fundamentally change about how you lead today?

A: When I started in Vietnam, I introduced innovation meetings — deciding which products to launch and upgrade.

For the first time, we had that level of cross-functional team around the table: supply chain, logistics, trade marketing, sales, procurement, and my marketing team.

The meeting was efficient. Everyone confirmed their part. We moved forward quickly. From my previous experience, that usually meant one thing: we were aligned.

A few weeks later, nothing had moved.

Nothing was blocked. There was no visible pushback — just slow execution, vague follow-ups, and a lack of real ownership. The kind of drift that’s hard to challenge because nothing is openly wrong.

What stayed with me was the gap between how the meeting had felt and what actually happened after.

I had taken acknowledgment for alignment.

The team understood the direction, but no one had taken ownership of it.

That changed how I lead.

Today, I don’t take alignment in the room at face value. I look at whether the decision is actually ready to move — who still needs to engage, and whether people are ready to carry it forward.

Because a decision doesn’t move because it’s acknowledged.

It moves when people make it real.

Trust Didn’t Come from Performance — It Came from Being Predictable

Q: In your day-to-day work at Keystoners, you help leaders “earn trust fast.” Can you walk us through a recent situation where a leader had to quickly rebuild or establish trust — and what specific shift made the difference?

A: Recently, I worked with a leader who had just taken over the APAC region.

She moved fast — set direction, delivered early results, and clarified priorities across a complex setup. From her perspective, that’s how you earn trust.

But the team didn’t read it that way.

They followed, but carefully. They delivered, but without much ownership. Decisions moved, but didn’t really gain traction. You could feel people holding back — watching, waiting. Not resisting. Not trusting either.

What was missing wasn’t output. It was predictable in how she led.

The team didn’t yet know where the boundaries were: what they could decide, how she would react, and what mattered most when trade-offs appeared. The direction was clear, but the space around it wasn’t.

So we focused on making her leadership more predictable.

By making her thinking visible before giving direction, she provided the team with much-needed context. She also responded consistently to similar situations, ensuring that her trade-offs were made explicit rather than implicit.

Then people started to step in — not because they were told to, but because they could anticipate her.

That predictability created safety. And that safety made trust possible.

In most APAC environments, that’s only part of it.

Trust also builds on the personal layer through being known. Sharing enough of who you are early on, so people can read you beyond the role.

Short-term, predictability in how you lead.

Long-term, predictability in who you are.

That’s what makes trust hold — and decisions carried forward.

Under Pressure, I Hold My Standards — And Adapt How Decisions Get Made

Q: You’ve operated as an outsider, a bridge, and a decision-maker across cultures. In high-pressure moments, how do you personally decide when to adapt to local dynamics versus when to hold your ground?

A: In high-pressure moments, I know what shows up first: my leadership autopilot.

It’s shaped by my experience, my cultural background, and the patterns I naturally default to as a leader. Under pressure, that’s what I fall back on.

Which means I have to be intentional about what I adapt.

I know I won’t get every behavior right in the moment. So I don’t try to adapt to everything. I focus on what actually changes the outcome — how decisions get made in that environment.

In Vietnam, for example, if I push for alignment only in the meeting, I’ll get acknowledgment, but no real movement. The decision is usually already shaped before that, through smaller conversations and relationships.

There’s one thing I don’t compromise on: my standard of excellence — what good looks like.

If I ignore how decisions are made locally, I can hold my standards perfectly and still get no results.

So under pressure, that’s the choice I make:

I hold the standards. And I adapt to how decisions get made — so people step into them and we can actually move.

A Good Leadership Day Is When the Real Problem Becomes Visible

Q: What does a “good leadership day” look like for you now — especially when you’re coaching executives navigating ambiguity and cultural complexity?

A: A good leadership day is not about having all the answers.

It’s when you realise you’ve been solving the wrong problem.

Most of the leaders I work with are operating on assumptions they don’t see. They assume others think the same way, interpret signals the same way, or define alignment and trust in the same way.

That’s where I come in.

I help surface what’s usually invisible — what they’re assuming, what others are assuming, and where the gap actually is.

Once that becomes clear, something shifts.

At that level of seniority, they don’t need to be told what to do. They already know. They find the approach that fits them, their context, and their leadership style — without becoming someone else.

That’s when things start to move.

Decisions gain traction. Teams engage differently. Influence becomes easier. Execution follows.

That’s what I call a good leadership day.

Not because everything is solved.

But because what was blocking progress becomes visible, results start to follow.

I Used to Believe Doing the Right Things Was Enough

Q: Looking back, what’s a piece of advice you once believed about leadership that you’ve since had to unlearn through your experience in Asia?

A: Before working in China and Vietnam, I believed that leadership was about doing the right things well — being clear, making good decisions, and delivering results.

If the direction is right and execution is strong, things should move.

And to be fair, that had worked for me.

Then I started working in Asia, and I kept seeing situations where everything looked right — but nothing really happened.

I had been reading the situation wrong.

People don’t resist decisions — they just don’t receive them the way you think they do.

And they don’t receive them objectively. They receive them through their own assumptions — about what matters, what’s expected, and how things should work.

One of the most effective ways to understand those assumptions is through the relationships and trust you build over time.

Before, I saw that as supportive. Now I see it as infrastructure.

Because a decision doesn’t move on its own.

It moves when people take it up, carry it, and make it real.

And that only happens when you build that relational layer.

That’s what I had to unlearn.

Doing the right things isn’t enough. They have to be received, trusted, and carried by the people around you.

Final Thoughts: Where Leadership Actually Happens

The hardest part of leadership isn’t setting direction.

It’s making sure that direction lives beyond the meeting room.

In cross-cultural environments, that gap is where most decisions fail — not because they are wrong, but because they are never truly carried forward.

For Julie, leadership today is less about being right and more about being understood, anticipated, and trusted.

Because in the end, execution doesn’t follow clarity alone.

It follows the connection.

Read the Chinese article here.