The Authority Document: A 1-Page Template That Changed Everything
Most founders cannot delegate effectively because they have not given anyone explicit authority to make decisions. The fix is a one-page authority document with three columns: decision type, owner, and ceiling. Write it once, revisit every 30 days. Founders who do this consistently report going from drowning to clear in 14 days.
The problem with most delegation advice
Every delegation framework on the internet ends in some version of: identify low-value tasks, assign them to someone else, focus on what matters.
This advice is not wrong. It is incomplete.
We have onboarded 47 founders this year. Every single one of them already had a list of things they knew they should delegate. The list usually included calendar coordination, vendor follow-ups, expense approvals, travel changes, recurring renewals, and operational follow-through. None of these were secrets.
The list did not get cleared because the bottleneck was not identification. The bottleneck was authority.
A founder can give her EA the calendar. The EA will still come back asking which conflict to prioritise. The founder can give her ops lead the vendor list. The ops lead will still ask before signing the renewal. The work moved. The decision did not.
What looks like a delegation failure is almost always an authority failure.
What is the authority document
The authority document is one page. It has three columns.
Column 1: Decision type. What kind of decision is being made.
Column 2: Owner. Who can make this decision without asking.
Column 3: Ceiling. What the limit is. Spending limit, time impact limit, scope limit. Above the ceiling, the decision escalates.
That is the entire structure. Most founders write theirs in about 25 minutes the first time. The second version takes longer because they realise they were too cautious in the first one.
A sample row
Here is one row from a real client's authority document. Names changed.
| Decision type | Owner | Ceiling |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor renewal | Ops Lead | Up to $5,000 / approved in last 12 months |
| Calendar conflicts | Senior EA | Under 4 hours of impact |
| Expense approvals | Finance person | Under $300 |
| Travel changes | Senior EA | Within agreed travel policy |
| Hiring offers | Founder | Always founder |
Notice what is happening in row 1. The ops lead can approve any vendor renewal up to $5,000 that has been approved in the previous 12 months. Above $5,000, or for new vendors, the decision escalates. This is the level of specificity that makes the document actually work.
Vague rules fail. Specific rules hold.
How to write yours in 30 minutes
Do this in one sitting. Closed door. Phone off.
Step 1. List every decision that came through you in the last 7 days. Use email, Slack, and your text history. Be honest. Founders typically find 30 to 50 decisions per week. Most are under $1,000 in financial impact.
Step 2. Tag each decision with whether it actually needed you.Use three tags. "Needed me" means a decision only the founder could make. "Should not have needed me" means the decision was below the level of strategic importance that justifies the founder's time. "Routine" means a decision that follows a clear pattern and could be automated through a rule.
Step 3. For each routine decision, write the rule. What ceiling makes sense. Who should own it. What is the escalation path.
Step 4. Pick the top 8 to 10 decisions and put them in the table. Do not try to write rules for everything. The top 10 cover 70% of the decision queue.
Step 5. Share with the named owners. Each owner should read their rows and confirm they understand the authority. If they push back, the rule needs revision.
Step 6. Set a 30-day review. First versions are almost always wrong in one or two places. The 30-day review is when you fix them.
The 30-day review cycle
The authority document is not a one-time exercise. It is a living document.
Every 30 days, ask three questions.
- What decisions are still coming through me that should not be?
- What decisions are being made without me that should not be?
- What rules need clearer ceilings?
The first review usually reveals two things. The founder kept some authority that should have moved (out of habit). And the team made some decisions that should have escalated (because the ceiling was too high).
Both are normal. Both are fixable in 5 minutes.
By month 3, the authority document feels permanent. The team operates with it as their reference. The founder is no longer the routing layer for routine decisions.
Why most authority documents fail
The document is simple. The execution is where it breaks.
Here are the four most common failures we see.
Failure 1: The founder writes the document but never shares it with the team.
Without confirmation that the owners understand their authority, nothing changes. The team continues to escalate because they do not know what they are authorised to decide.
Failure 2: The ceilings are too low.
A $300 vendor approval ceiling means the founder still sees every reasonable invoice. The ceilings should be uncomfortable. If they feel safe, they are not delegating anything.
Failure 3: No escalation rule.
Authority without an escalation path creates anxiety in the owner. She is afraid to act because she does not know what triggers escalation. Always include the escalation criteria.
Failure 4: No review cycle.
Companies change every 90 days. The authority document needs to evolve. Without a built-in review, the document goes stale and the team starts ignoring it.
What changes when this works
Founders we have worked with report similar patterns.
In week 1, the founder feels uncomfortable. She is approving fewer things and worrying about what is going wrong without her watching.
In week 2, she starts noticing how much time was being lost to small approvals. A typical founder reclaims 6 to 9 hours a week in week 2.
In week 3, the team starts pre-empting. They make decisions, document them, and update the founder weekly instead of asking permission daily.
By week 6, the company runs differently. The founder is no longer the bottleneck for routine work. She has more time for strategic work, which is the only kind of work that grows the company.
The authority document is not a productivity hack. It is the operational layer that makes everything else possible.
When to revise the document
Four triggers should prompt a revision outside the 30-day review.
A new hire joins the team. Their authority needs to be added to the document on day one, not day 30.
The company crosses a size threshold. Roughly every 10 new people, the document needs a full rewrite. The decisions a 12-person company makes are different from a 25-person company.
A decision goes wrong because the rule was unclear. Fix the rule immediately. Do not wait for the review.
The founder takes a real vacation. Before any extended time off, the authority document gets a full audit. Anything that needs the founder during the trip needs to be explicitly assigned to someone else with the same authority.
We build the authority document with every founder during their first week at Conciero. If you want to see how this looks in practice, we offer a 30-minute decision audit call. No pitch. Just a conversation about where decisions are actually getting stuck in your company.
Book a 30-minute decision auditFrequently Asked Questions
What is the authority document and how does it differ from a job description?
A job description lists what someone does. The authority document lists what they can decide without asking. Most teams have job descriptions but no authority documents, which is why work moves but decisions still bottleneck through the founder.
How long does it take to write the first version of the authority document?
Most founders complete a usable first version in 25 to 30 minutes. The second version, written after a week of using it, usually takes longer because the founder realises certain ceilings need adjustment.
Who should write the authority document, the founder or the team?
The founder writes the first version. The team reviews and confirms understanding. If team members push back on a row, the rule needs clarification. Authority that the team does not understand is not real authority.
How often should the authority document be reviewed?
Every 30 days for the first 90 days, then quarterly. Additional revisions are triggered by new hires, size milestones, or any decision that went wrong because the rule was unclear.
Can the authority document work for remote teams across time zones?
Yes. It is especially important for remote teams. Without explicit authority in writing, every decision either waits for synchronous overlap or gets escalated unnecessarily. The document allows decisions to flow asynchronously, which is the entire point of distributed teams.
What happens if a team member makes a wrong decision within their authority?
Review the rule, not the person. If the rule was clear and the decision was reasonable based on available information, the system worked even if the outcome was poor. If the rule was ambiguous, fix the rule. Authority documents fail when founders punish team members for outcomes that were within their authorised scope.
Is the authority document a substitute for hiring a chief of staff?
No, but it makes the chief of staff hire much more effective when it does happen. Without an authority document, the chief of staff becomes the founder's project manager. With one, the chief of staff focuses on strategic execution while the operational tail is already handled.