Why everything escalates and nothing gets decided

Escalation reveals the truth about execution.

In strong environments, escalation is normal, early, and useful. It protects value.

It only works when decision rights are clear and escalation thresholds are explicit, equiping teams to resolve what they can and escalate what truly needs enterprise judgement.

In weaker environments, teams swing to extremes, they sit on issues until it’s urgent, or they escalate everything and call it governance. Both are expensive.

This theme came through continually in my research with senior leaders. The pain wasn’t the escalation itself; it was the pattern. Leaders either found out late or were flooded with noise, and by then the options were already limited.

Healthy escalation has one job: surface drift early enough to reset course.

Escalation patterns aren't a behaviour problem. They're what people do when the thresholds were never set, so nobody knows what they're allowed to decide. Naming who owns what, and at which level, is part of what Operating Model sets up.

Here’s the standard I use with leadership teams. When something escalates, do you get:
- facts, not feelings
- impact on value / time / risk
- options and trade-offs
- a clear recommendation
- the decision needed, and by when

If you’re not getting those inputs, escalation turns into theatre, lots of heat, not much movement.

And, if escalations don’t end in a reset, they’re just venting. Decide, re-baseline, assign ownership, then update the guardrails so the same issue doesn’t keep climbing.

Do issues reach you too late, or do they reach you too often?

This is part of lever 4 (Governance & Decision Rights) of the Strategy Execution by Design Model. See the full framework →

Not sure which of the seven levers is holding your execution back? Take the Strategy Execution Maturity Model Assessment →

Written by Rebecca Reti, strategy and execution consultant working with boards and executive teams across Australia and New Zealand.

There's more on this in the carousel, with practical ways to build healthy escalation into your governance system. See the carousel on LinkedIn →