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The Authority Leak Scorecard

Find out in 10 minutes where decision rights are leaking in your escalation system. Seven signs. Your score and Authority Leak Map at the end.

Before you begin

How to use this scorecard

Check each sign that shows up during high-pressure customer escalations.
Count only patterns you have seen more than once. Do not score based on one bad day.
When you finish all seven, get your score, your Authority Leak Map, and the PDF.

The diagnostic

The 7 Signs of Authority Leakage

Check only patterns you have observed more than once.

Major decisions wait for the same senior leader.

High-pressure decisions have quietly become one person's job.

Check this if: the team pauses until a specific senior leader approves the next move.

Customer updates need too many approvals.

Approval chains slow the customer down and signal internal uncertainty.

Check this if: customer-facing messages get rewritten, delayed, or escalated because nobody feels clear ownership.

Severity is driven by noise.

The loudest customer or most anxious executive sets the priority, not business impact.

Check this if: severity changes based on pressure, volume, politics, or executive anxiety instead of clear business criteria.

The same escalation returns after being "resolved."

Closure is declared, but ownership was never actually reassigned.

Check this if: the technical issue closes, but the same customer, same pattern, or same internal confusion keeps coming back.

The team waits for direction instead of acting.

Clear roles exist on paper. Under pressure, they dissolve.

Check this if: people know the process during normal operations but hesitate, defer, or freeze during customer pressure.

Executives join calls without a defined role.

Presence signals urgency but creates confusion about who is leading.

Check this if: executives enter escalation calls and the room becomes less clear about decision rights, ownership, or next steps.

Postmortems produce discussion, not ownership changes.

The debrief happens. The system does not change.

Check this if: lessons are captured, but decision rights, roles, escalation triggers, or ownership paths remain the same after every review.

Check the signs above to see your result.

Your result

Your score

0 / 7

Ownership Holds (0 to 2)

Your escalation system is mostly clear. Authority appears to stay close to the work, even when pressure rises. The risk is not failure. The risk is drift.

Your focus: protect ownership before pressure increases.

Authority Is Leaking (3 to 4)

Your process may look clear in calm moments, but authority starts moving upward under stress. The team may still be capable. Decision rights, customer communication, and escalation ownership are not holding when stakes rise.

Your focus: identify the specific decision, message, or ownership handoff that starts moving upward when pressure rises.

Executive Rescue Has Become the System (5 to 7)

Senior leaders may have become the hidden escalation operating system. Customers learn to bypass the process. Executives become bottlenecks in the very situations they are trying to stabilize.

Your focus: stop treating this as an escalation volume problem. It is likely an authority design problem.

From score to action

Draft Your Authority Map

Answer four questions to start mapping who owns what before the next escalation. Bring it to your free Pressure Check.

The decision, message, or customer-facing action that should not require senior leader rescue:

When pressure rises, this should be owned by:

The person or role who should approve it is:

The senior leader should only enter if:

Book a free Pressure Check →

After the Scorecard

The next step is not another meeting. It is a map.

Want to talk it through? Book a free 45-minute Pressure Check. We go over your result together. No sales pitch.

Book a free Pressure Check →

The Authority Leak Scorecard

Where should I send your score and map?

The next step is not another meeting. It is a map.