Dr. Victoria McCausland Launches Lead Aligned to Strengthen Workforce Retention in D.C.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Sept. 1 — Dr. Victoria McCausland, a communication scholar, leadership consultant and U.S. Marine Corps veteran, has launched Lead Aligned, a turnover risk advisory firm that helps corporations and government organizations diagnose and reduce preventable employee turnover before it becomes a retention crisis.
Nationally, 75% of employee departures are preventable, according to Work Institute's 2025 Retention Report, which analyzed more than 120,000 exit interviews. Lead Aligned works with organizations to close that gap by treating turnover as a systemic business risk rather than a symptom to train around. The company's Talent Growth System uses a research-informed diagnostic to pinpoint where organizations are most exposed to preventable turnover, then builds a targeted plan to close those gaps, so leaders act on evidence instead of guessing at fixes.
McCausland's approach is built on two foundations that rarely sit in the same room: her military background and her PhD research on supportive communication within systems, both formal and informal, institutional and not, during periods of extreme stress and adversity. That combination led to her recruitment as a government civilian to work alongside a Tier 1 Special Operations unit, where she built lasting cultural infrastructure that scaled across the Naval Special Operations Enterprise.
"I came into my previous role as an academic with research on how people build community and hold together under pressure. What I didn't expect was how directly it would apply in such high-stakes environments. Watching those systems take hold and outlast the people who built them is still the most rewarding work I've done." Lead Aligned was co-founded alongside Sarah Davis, a Gallup-Certified Strengths Coach whose prior work has spanned Tier 1 Special Operations communities, Fortune 500 companies and healthcare systems.
Davis and McCausland’s combination of experience is particularly relevant in the Washington, D.C. region, where government agencies, federal contractors and private-sector employers depend on experienced people to carry institutional knowledge and execute high-stakes missions.
“DC has the highest concentration of mission-critical organizations in the country, and here turnover isn't just a cost problem, it's a continuity problem,” McCausland said.
As Lead Aligned expands its work across the D.C. metro area, McCausland and Davis aim to partner with organizations navigating complex workforce challenges, from leadership transitions to the pressures of retaining talent. For organizations whose missions depend on people staying aligned, engaged and prepared to lead, the goal is not simply to reduce turnover, but to build the conditions that make great employees want to stay.
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About Dr. Victoria McCausland
Dr. Victoria McCausland is a communication scholar, leadership consultant, speaker and U.S. Marine Corps veteran. Her research focuses on supportive communication within systems and relational resilience. She is a Professor of Communication at Old Dominion University and earned her PhD in Interpersonal Communication from Pennsylvania State University. She is the co-founder of Lead Aligned.
