How the read
is actually built.
BorealPath is a deterministic scoring engine, not an opinion. This page explains what it measures, how it classifies, and — just as important — what it cannot see.
Methodology v1.0 — last revised August 2026
01 // THE FIVE PILLARS
Every score traces back to one of five structural dimensions. None of them measure how you feel about your job.
Authority
Whether you can shape consequential decisions, frame the narrative upward, and approve meaningful commitments. Low authority means scope can look senior on paper while real yes/no control sits elsewhere.
Horizon
The time horizon of the work you actually control, not the title attached to the role. Low horizon means urgent delivery is crowding out strategic or career-compounding work.
Leverage
Whether your impact compounds through systems, delegation, and durable mechanisms rather than your personal time. Low leverage means outcomes stall the moment you step away.
Integrity
Whether credit, accountability, evaluation, and advancement signals line up with the value you actually create. Low integrity means the system may be rewarding proxies instead of outcomes.
Environment
Whether the surrounding environment is stable, truth-telling, and capable of converting strong performance into durable progress. Low environment means even strong execution can decay because the structure around it keeps resetting.
02 // THE TWO SCORES
Decision Authority Index (DAI)
The Decision Authority Index answers one question: do you hold real control over the decisions, commitments, and evaluation criteria that shape your role? Not how busy you are, how senior your title reads, or how well-regarded you are. It is a weighted composite, weighted unevenly by design — a high title with no decision rights behind it scores low.
Certain answers indicate a structural failure that a pillar average would hide. Where those are present, the composite is adjusted to reflect them rather than averaging them away.
Drift Index
Where the Decision Authority Index asks how much control you hold, Drift Index asks how far your role has moved from where it should sit at your level. It draws on all five pillars and gives a wider structural-health read.
The two usually move together. When they diverge, that divergence is itself the finding — and the diagnostic tells you which pillar is causing it.
03 // FIVE STALL PATTERNS
Each pattern is scored independently from your answers. Your read names one dominant pattern, and any secondary patterns material enough to matter.
Sponsor Deficit
No senior leader is actively advocating for your scope, budget, or visibility.
Mandate Erosion
Your title and formal scope stayed the same. The decision rights behind them didn't — authority has fallen meaningfully below what your accountability requires, and it's held there long enough to be structural, not a rough quarter.
Forum Exclusion
Decisions in your domain get settled in rooms you're not in. The sharpest version: learning about a decision only after it's final. More common in matrix and consensus-driven operating models.
Gold-Plated Cage
A stable, comfortable environment that rewards consistent delivery or political alignment over initiative, paired with silence on advancement. You are not at risk. You are also not moving.
Execution Gravity
Outcomes in your domain depend on your personal time and presence rather than systems or delegation. You are valuable and exhausted — and the role doesn't scale without you in it every day.
04 // READING A SCORE
A Drift score in the 60s does not mean a 60% chance of anything specific happening to you. It means the structural signals in your answers — decision rights, time horizon, leverage, environment, and evaluation integrity — collectively resemble profiles where drift is present and compounding, not profiles where it is absent.
A single sitting produces a signal, not a verdict. It reflects your answers on the day you gave them, calibrated against your stated seniority, function, and operating context. It is a structural hypothesis worth investigating, not a diagnosis to act on blind.
05 // STATED LIMITATIONS
This is the strongest trust signal on this page, not a disclaimer to skip.
Self-report bias
Stage 1 answers are self-reported. The instrument scores what you tell it, not an independently verified account of your role.
Resume-derived inference
Fields like industry cycle and operating model are inferred from your resume and the model's knowledge of your employer. These are best-guess pre-fills you confirm or correct, not verified facts.
Early-stage calibration
BorealPath is early. Scoring norms and pattern distribution will sharpen as the sample size across seniority, function, and industry grows.
What it cannot see
Informal influence that never shows up structurally, politics that haven't yet surfaced in your scope or title, and events too recent to be reflected in your answers.
06 // WHY A THIRD PARTY
BorealPath does not sell a fix contingent on a particular diagnosis. The scoring engine is deterministic — the same answers produce the same score regardless of what happens after. Stage 2, where used, verifies the Stage 1 read against evidence you control rather than persuading you toward a predetermined conclusion. That structure is what removes the conflict of interest a subjective coaching relationship cannot fully avoid.
07 // WHO BUILT THIS
Soroush Mosavati, Founder, BorealPath. Two decades in operations and technology across banking, insurance, tech, retail, oil and gas, and ventures of his own.