Organizational & Leadership Advisory
Executive partnership to diagnose and redesign leadership and culture systems so organizations can perform without burnout, reactivity, or breakdown.
The Real Issue Beneath Leadership and Culture Breakdowns
Most leadership and culture challenges don’t stem from a lack of intelligence or strategy.
They emerge when human systems are not designed to withstand performance pressure, power dynamics, role ambiguity, and communication strain.
Over time, these dynamics compound — eroding trust, slowing decisions, increasing burnout, and destabilizing culture.
This is especially true at growth thresholds, where expansion exposes structural weaknesses that were previously manageable.
Common indicators include:
• Sustained burnout masked as ambition
• Reactive leadership patterns
• Avoided conflict and unclear accountability
• Misaligned roles and authority
• Communication breakdown across departments
• Systems that cannot support current complexity
The issue is rarely individual performance.
It is structural.
That is the level where I work.
I don’t work at the surface level of leadership.
I work at the nervous system level.
Because no culture can evolve beyond the emotional capacity of the people leading it.
And no organization can scale sustainably if its leaders are:
• Dysregulated
• Burned out
• Avoiding hard conversations
• Operating from control instead of presence
• Intellectually self-aware but emotionally unavailable
• Leading from fear disguised as productivity
My work integrates:
• Emotional intelligence
• Nervous system regulation
• Embodied leadership
• Clear communication
• Structural clarity
• Values-aligned systems
• Real accountability
This is not soft work.
It’s the hardest leadership work there is.
leadership starts in the body
How the Work Happens
My organizational advisory practice is grounded in the Human Alignment Method™ - a framework integrating leadership psychology, emotional intelligence, nervous system regulation, and systems design.
Engagements typically include:
Leadership & Organizational Diagnostics
• Executive interviews
• Culture and communication mapping
• Decision-flow and authority analysis
• Burnout and load assessment
Executive Advisory & Integration
• Ongoing 1:1 executive advisory
• Leadership team alignment sessions
• Conflict navigation where necessary
• Clarification of roles and decision authority
Systems & Culture Architecture
• Redesign of communication rhythms
• Implementation of accountability structures
• Cross-department coordination design
• Alignment of performance standards with sustainable capacity
Ways We Can Work Together
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Organizational & Leadership Audit
A comprehensive diagnostic of leadership dynamics, communication patterns, burnout risk, emotional safety, and cultural strain.
Best for:
Best for organizations seeking insight before long-term advisory work. -
Executive & Leadership Advisory
Ongoing partnership with founders and leadership teams navigating complexity, growth, and organizational change.
Best for:
Organizations seeking sustained leadership and culture transformation. -
Workshops & Integration Sessions
Facilitated sessions designed to integrate advisory insights into leadership teams and operational systems.
Best for:
Teams ready to operationalize structural change.
Meet the Team
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christa russo
Executive Leadership Advisor | Founder, Human Alignment Method™
Christa is an Executive Leadership Advisor working with founders and executive teams to diagnose structural leadership and culture breakdowns at the systems level. Through her Human Alignment Method™, she integrates leadership psychology, nervous system science, and organizational design to stabilize performance under pressure and strengthen long-term cultural resilience. Her work turns leadership strain into aligned, high-functioning systems. -
Marlee Whetten
Founder, The Hack
Marlee is the founder of The Hack, a culture strategy firm that helps leaders solve people challenges at the root by turning interpersonal dynamics into measurable data. A systems thinker with a background in psychology and organizational behavior, she partners with CEOs and leadership teams to diagnose culture misalignment, map compatibility dynamics, and design people strategies that scale. Her work brings clarity to complex cultural patterns — transforming invisible interpersonal friction into actionable insight.
www.TheHack.pro
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Tara Thurber
MARKETING DIRECTOR
Tara is a strategic people leader and trusted HR partner with 15+ years of experience in recruitment, human resources, and organizational growth. She partners with founders and executive teams to build compliant, scalable, and human-centered people systems that support sustainable performance. Through DefinedTalent, she brings structure, clarity, and strategic oversight to complex hiring and HR challenges.www.definedtalent.com
Selected Work
Fox Point Farms
Organizational & Leadership Audit + Executive AdvisoryA multi-phase engagement supporting leadership stability, communication clarity, burnout risk reduction, and structural culture alignment across a multi-business organization.
What Makes This Work Different
This is not leadership training.
It is not coaching divorced from systems.
It is not culture work reduced to values statements.
This work treats leadership as a human responsibility embedded in systems — recognizing that organizations don’t perform better by demanding more from people, but by designing systems that support human reality.
Starting the Conversation
Most organizational engagements begin with an exploratory conversation to assess fit and determine whether an Organizational & Leadership Audit or advisory partnership makes sense.