Levels of authority and intent-based leadership
Replace "may I…" with "I intend to…". The person states what they are about to do and why, the leader's silence counts as consent, and an objection has to be voiced. In its formal version, there is a ladder of authority levels agreed for each kind of decision: recommend, decide and inform, decide alone.
Evidence grade: practice A widely adopted practitioner model with clear provenance.
Use it when
Making the level of delegated authority explicit and visible in every exchange; moving decisions to where the information is.
Where it stops working
It needs a leader who will in fact stay silent, and a culture in which stating an intent is not heard as asking permission.
Where the standard uses it
- PL-1Delegation, ownership, and decision rightsMatching scope to capability, making authority explicit, not taking work back.
Sources
- L. David Marquet. Turn the Ship Around!: A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders. Portfolio / Penguin, 2012. In the bibliography
Used alongside it
- Managerial leverage practice
- One-way and two-way doors practice
- Situational leadership practice
- Task-relevant maturity practice
Cite this model
Chicago, BibTeX and licence →Engineering Management Academy. (2026). Levels of authority and intent-based leadership. In Engineering Management Academy Body of Knowledge (Version 3.1, TEC.intent-based-leadership). https://www.engineeringmanagement.academy/body-of-knowledge/techniques/intent-based-leadership