> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Why do leadership and management keep misaligning (according to CCOs) - URL: https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/leadership-and-management-misalignment/ - Published: 2026-09-22T14:00:44.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-22T14:00:44.000Z - Description: In all businesses, leadership sets the direction. Sure, metrics come and go, often redefined depending on business priorities. But there can often be a disconnect. The C-suite sets a vision, and somewhere between the executive floor and the frontline, the message gets thin, stalls out, or stops. - Author: Grace Gupta - Tags: Leadership, Management, Chief Customer Officer, Articles In all businesses, [leadership](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/leadership-framework-culture-of-high-performance/) sets the direction. Sure, metrics come and go, often redefined depending on business priorities. Usually, a kickoff happens and everyone nods along. But there can often be a disconnect. Many [customer success managers](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/what-makes-a-good-customer-success-manager-great/) (CSMs) find themselves in an all-too-familiar situation where months later, leadership’s message *still* hasn't quite landed two or three levels down. And the real sticky point is that nobody can quite explain why. That gap, between what leadership *decides* and what actually *happens* on the ground, is different from the usual [sales-CS-product](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/how-to-perfect-customer-success-and-sales-alignment/) friction that gets most of the attention in CS debates online and at conferences. It's vertical rather than horizontal: the [C-suite](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/c-suite-buy-in/) sets a vision, and somewhere between the executive floor and the frontline, the message gets thin, stalls out, or stops. Four practitioners at [Chief Customer Officer Summits](https://events.customersuccesscollective.com/) described pieces of this problem from different angles, in their own words. ## What happens when nobody manages the gap on purpose **Mike Merit, Chief Customer Officer at Planet,** gave the clearest account of what this looks like left unmanaged, in his talk at [Chief Customer Officer Summit San Francisco](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/rewriting-customer-support-playbook-anecdotal-to-actionable/) 2024 on building [customer-centric culture](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/how-successful-customers-drive-successful-companies/) across remote teams. His whole talk was about operational clarity, so this is squarely what he was there to discuss. When he joined his company, role clarity between CS, sales, presales, and support hadn't been defined at a leadership level, so it was being fought out informally by the people doing the work. *"What had been happening until then was that it was happening at the bottom level,"* he said. *"The* [*account executive*](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/what-is-the-difference-between-customer-success-managers-and-account-managers/)*, the CSM, the* [*tech support manager*](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/technical-customer-success-manager/)*, you know, the presales engineer, they all were fighting over this at their level, and trying to get clarity. That just doesn't work long term."* His fix was what he called the “Clarity Engine,” built around a specific communication structure that ran the full length of the organization. > *"There's the exec meeting, then we do a VP meeting, then we do the* [*customer success people managers*](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/from-individual-contributor-to-management-a-customer-success-managers-transition/) *meeting where I brief them. Then we do the all-hands, and then we do comms out to partners, then we do comms out to customers.”* Crucially, Mike also didn't assume his CS managers already knew how to carry that cascade. At the end of his talk, he was asked directly in a Q&A portion about the type of training he gave the managers in his team leading remote teams; he described bringing them together in person before rolling anything out: > *"This is the training we brought the table group in and actually showed them how to run meetings* \[...\] *So the cascade down, but also the cascade up of information.”* [![Free resources worth paying for: Templates, reports and expert content – no card required – with a Customer Success Collective Insider membership.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/6f/66/6f66cab9-7939-4355-91c0-409dddffd4d9/content/images/2026/06/Free-resources-worth-paying-for-Templates--reports-and-expert-content-----no-card-required.--2-.jpg)](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/insider-membership-plan/) ## A CCO's case for staying close to the frontline **Lynn Dick, Chief Customer Officer at Language Services Associates**, made a related case from a different angle, in her talk at [Chief Customer Officer Summit New York](https://events.customersuccesscollective.com/location/cconewyork) about her 26-year path from entry-level coordinator to the executive team. Her core argument was that a leader's job is to keep [advocating upward](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/authentic-leadership-guide/) for what the frontline actually needs, not just to set direction and walk away. > *"Ultimately, I see myself very much as an advocate for our customers and for our customer-facing teams* \[...\] *I want to talk to them, too. Because they're the ones that are actually on the front lines. They're the ones that are talking to my customers. They will tell me what is not working, for sure."* She also described a specific mantra she uses to [train the managers](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/strategies-leadership-new-managers-cheatsheet/) coming up underneath her, on delegating without disappearing: *"You don't have to do it yourself. You just have to inspect what you expect and that it's getting done."* She said she teaches this *"to my up-and-coming next-level leaders, everybody, this concept."* Her closing framing of the leadership role was direct: "We [hear the customer's voice](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/creating-an-effective-voice-of-the-customer-program/). We understand the realities of our frontline workers. And we are able to influence strategy at the highest levels of the organization." Her advice to the room was correspondingly simple: > *"Stay connected. Walk your customer journeys. Talk to your customer-facing teams. And advocate, sometimes loudly."* [Learning to lead: A guide to authentic leadershipThis article will serve as your personal guide through the sometimes hazardous journey of leadership. Here’s what you’ll walk away with: the five rules that encompass my leadership framework; the five promises you won’t compromise on; and the 10 deliberate actions you can take.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/6f/66/6f66cab9-7939-4355-91c0-409dddffd4d9/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-d6026c59-80a5-4032-9bf0-cb143aeba90c.png)Customer Success CollectiveVirginia Bloom![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/6f/66/6f66cab9-7939-4355-91c0-409dddffd4d9/content/images/thumbnail/CSC_Website_Article_Images_Author_Highlight--14--7a3dd1e7-a12a-4903-b0ea-f3a04581e8a5.jpg)](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/authentic-leadership-guide/) ## Leaders as the buffer, with nowhere to put the pressure **Maranda Dziekonski, Chief Customer Officer at Fexa**, spoke to the cost side of this gap in her talk at [Chief Customer Officer Summit London](https://events.customersuccesscollective.com/location/ccolondon) 2025 that was mainly about burnout economics, not leadership structure directly. Her point about the vertical squeeze came up in Q&A, when an audience member described a CFO pushing aggressive year-on-year price increases without registering the toll it was taking on her CS team. Earlier in the talk, describing people in her role generally, she said: > *"Hard truth: I think CCOs or VPs of CS are the organization's emotional shock absorbers.* \[...\] *We absorb stress from our teams, from our customers, and our executives often without a safety net of our own."* When the audience member asked how to get her CFO to actually register that cost, Maranda's answer wasn't really about the team. It was about the position of the leader stuck in between: *"You have to be the buffer between CEO, CCO, or whoever is above you and your team."* ![Ready for your next promotiom? Customer Success Leadership: Certified](https://storage.ghost.io/c/6f/66/6f66cab9-7939-4355-91c0-409dddffd4d9/content/images/2026/03/CSC_Education_In-Article_Banner_--1-.jpg) ## Leading a team through change means giving context, not just direction **Julia Matviichuk, Chief Customer Success Officer at Taimi**, addressed this from a different context still, in a [Chief Customer Officer Summit London](https://events.customersuccesscollective.com/location/ccolondon) talk on resilient leadership, drawn from leading a distributed CS team through the early days of the invasion of Ukraine. It's worth being precise about her framing, because she explicitly scoped her strongest claim to crises rather than presenting it as a universal rule: > *"There are different situations. And sometimes you need to be a manager. Sometimes you need to be a strong leader. But in times of crisis, it's about the first one."* That's the context for her line about what a leader owes a team [during upheaval](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/behavioral-science-behind-change-management/): > *"So if you want to overcome something and get to new heights as a team, you need to get stronger, to get a stronger vision, and to learn how to lead, not to manage."* In a normal operating environment, by her own framing, managing is also legitimate. It's specifically [in crisis or major change](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/customer-experience-crisis-resilience-resolution-and-reputation-management/) that she argues leading has to take over. Her point about what happens when a manager doesn't buy into the strategy came from the same talk: > *"If, for example, one of your leaders, team leaders, doesn't understand the whole idea of your strategic goals, doesn't support it, it will influence the rest of their team."* [ ![](https://pma-assets-external.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/Content/CSC/CSC_State_of_Customer_Success_Leadership_ArticleBanner.jpg) ](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/state-of-customer-success-leadership/) ## Communicating past the leadership team, not just within it **Astra Duke, Global VP, Customer Success at 1E**, named the mechanical version of this problem directly, in her talk on change management at [Chief Customer Officer Summit London](https://events.customersuccesscollective.com/location/ccolondon) in 2024: > *"This is more so from a leadership perspective* \[...\] *It's just making sure that we are actually communicating not only within our leadership teams but to our individual team members and, you know, our customers."* ## Where these perspectives converge Mike and Lynn both describe active practices for closing the gap on purpose, one through structure, the other through staying personally connected to the frontline and training managers to delegate without disappearing. Maranda names the cost to the people stuck absorbing it, in an answer to one specific question rather than as her central thesis. Julia argues that a manager who doesn't buy into a strategy can't be expected to carry it forward, though her strongest language about leading over managing is specific to crisis conditions. Astra points out that leaders often mistake talking to their peers for talking to their organization. None of this is a problem better Slack/Teams habits would fix. It's an [accountability gap](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/driving-roi-and-customer-accountability-for-success/): nobody owns making sure strategy survives the trip from the executive floor to the frontline, and closing it looks different in a routine quarter than it does in a crisis. [![Evaluate your CSM's performance scorecard template](https://storage.ghost.io/c/6f/66/6f66cab9-7939-4355-91c0-409dddffd4d9/content/images/2026/03/CSC_In-Article_Ads_Template--3-.jpg)](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/csms-performance-evaluation-scorecard-framework/) ## Practical moves that surfaced across these talks ### 1\. Train managers on the cascade itself, not just the message Mike’s team brought managers together for a dedicated kickoff and taught them how to run meetings that would carry information both down to their teams and back up to leadership. ### 2\. Build a specific, repeatable communication structure Mike's exec meeting to VP meeting to people-managers meeting to all-hands to partners to customers gives every layer a defined moment to pass information along, rather than relying on it trickling down informally. ### 3\. Give managers the why, not just the what Julia's point was that a team lead who doesn't understand or believe in a strategy can't effectively represent it, however clear the instructions are. ### 4\. Recognize that the buffer role has a cost Maranda’s "emotional shock absorbers" framing is a reminder that the people managing this gap are absorbing real pressure from both directions, which is a retention risk at the management layer itself if it goes unacknowledged. Check where your last communication actually landed. Astra’s point is a useful gut check; ask yourself about the last time you communicated a priority: who was actually in the room? ## The gap that keeps reappearing None of these speakers treated this as solved once and left behind. Mike built an entire operational framework around it and still described it as needing constant reinforcement. Maranda’s framing suggests it's a permanent structural feature of the CS leadership role, not a bug to patch out. The distance between what leadership decides and what happens on a customer call doesn't close by itself, and it doesn't stay closed once someone does the work. It has to be managed on purpose, continuously. --- ## Keep the strategy conversation going The gap between leadership and the frontline doesn't close with one article; it takes ongoing access to the thinking that's shaping how top CCOs actually operate. With a [CSC Pro+ membership](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/pro-plus-membership/), you get early and ungated access to [reports](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/content-hub/?filter=reports) like this one, 100s of hours of OnDemand sessions from CS leaders at companies like LinkedIn, Intercom, and Stripe, access to 9+ certifications, as well as members-only strategic content delivered straight to your inbox, so you can build strategies and make decisions backed by a wealth of real-world leadership insight. [ Convince your boss ](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/pro-plus-membership/)