I learned many things as an executive at the University of Chicago Medical Center. One of the most important lessons was that senior executives don’t like getting emails or phone calls from irate customers. I received my fair share of forwarded emails with a simple two word introduction: “Fix this.”

It’s not that these executives don’t care about customers or find them to be an annoyance. In fact, I’ve found quite the opposite to be true. Senior executives often care deeply about the experience that their customer’s have. What frustrates them is that most of the time, the problems that are escalated have a simple, clear, and obvious solution. In many cases, people throughout the organization knew the right thing to do, they just didn’t do it.

One C-Level executive was contacted by a customer who was appealing a $25 service charge on a bill. Her husband passed away and in the month that she was getting his and her affairs in order she missed payment. The answer is obvious, right? Apparently not. This customer had spoken to over 10 people in the organization at varying levels. None of them were willing to drop the service charge. The executive was astounded that issue even got to him. Within five minutes the service charge was dropped.

As a consumer I’ve learned to use it to my advantage. When I run into a problem, I no longer waste my time trying to navigate the maze of supervisors and middle managers who either aren’t willing or aren’t able to solve my problem. Instead, if the first two people I speak with can’t make things right, I find a senior executive with whom to share my issue. Since changing to this strategy, my success rate for resolving problems has increased to an almost perfect score. And, the amount of time I spend trying to get my problems resolved has dropped dramatically.

So what’s going on? These senior executives don’t have more information about me than the front line staff or supervisors. They probably don’t understand the specific processes that are impacting my ability to be served. In fact, usually the people who wind up solving my problems are the original people with whom I dealt.

I used to count the “fix it” notes that I’d receive as symbols of failed leadership. More specifically, failures of my leadership. If someone on my team couldn’t (or wouldn’t make) an obvious decision to help a customer, that was my fault. The person didn’t have the ability, information, or motivation they needed to make the right call. Ability, information, and motivation is the job of a leader. Some leaders seem to take pride in the fact that when an issue is raised to their level, they can get it resolved quickly. I think it might be more appropriate to question how and why the issue even made it to them in the first place.

Does your organization require that customer complaints be escalated to the highest levels of the organization before they are resolved? Do you have a culture where executives in one department resort to contacting their peers in other departments to get things done? If so it’s time to rethink your leadership strategy. Leaders need to empower their people to make decisions and take actions. You can’t successfully run a business with every micro decision being made at the top.