All participants held or had held senior leadership positions at the time of the interview. Many drew on organizational experiences from multiple roles in their career. Organization size: Large (LG) = >1,000 employees; Medium (MED) = 100–1,000 employees; Small (SM) = <100 employees. Constructs reflects the primary constructs: Alignment Illusion (AI), Strategy-Execution Gap (S-E), Execution-Culture Gap (E-C), Culture-Strategy Gap (C-S), Spillover (Spill) that emerged in each interview. Illusion Dynamics reflect the underlying mechanisms of the Alignment Illusion: Hierarchical Filtering (HF) and Performative Compliance (PC), and the amplifying condition of Temporal Accumulation (TA). Participant evidence counts reflect the number of interviews in which each construct or dynamic emerged