About Wesley Paterson, CMC
The Rescue Tax Calculator

Your Rescue Culture Has a Price Tag.

Hero leadership feels noble — until you calculate what it's actually costing. Most mid-market organizations are losing $1M–$5M annually to rescue behaviors their leaders don't even recognize.

Based on the 20 Rescue Behaviors framework from The Hero's Rope by Wesley Paterson, CMC — earned #1 Amazon Best Seller in Organizational Change, April 2026. Refined across 500+ consulting engagements.

Your Organization

Adjust the inputs to match your reality. Your Rescue Tax updates in real time.

50
Anyone with direct reports — front-line supervisors through executive team.
$145,000
Salary + bonus + benefits + employer taxes. Use a blended average.
25%
Doing IC work, fixing problems teams should handle, answering unnecessary escalations, redoing work, swooping in on struggling projects.
15
Decisions that should have been made closer to the work.
$2,500
Lost revenue, idle resources, customer impact, missed windows. Conservative estimate is fine.
18%
Burnout-driven exits among your strongest leaders. Industry average runs 12–22%.
1.5×
Recruiting, ramp, lost productivity, knowledge loss. SHRM and industry research place this between 0.75× and 2×.
Annual Rescue Tax
$0
/ year
Per leader
$0
% of leadership payroll
0%
CEO-equivalent days lost
0
Severity
—

Where it's leaking

A · Leader Productivity Tax$0
B · Decision Bottleneck Tax$0
C · Burnout & Turnover Tax$0
D · Capability Suppression Tax$0
LOW

Your rescue tax is manageable — but still real.

Want a real number, not a directional estimate?

The figures above are a directional estimate based on your inputs. To know your actual Rescue Tax — with category-by-category analysis, severity interpretation, and a phased remediation plan — Wesley Paterson, CMC conducts a Rescue Audit of your organization. Scope and investment vary by organization size and complexity. Email below to learn more; Wesley will reply directly with audit scope, timeline, and investment range.

Wesley replies within one business day. No obligation. Investment scoped to organization size.

How the Rescue Tax is calculated

Four leak categories, all derived from inputs you control. No black boxes. No fabricated benchmarks. The math is below — adjust the assumptions to your context.

A · Productivity Tax

Time leaders spend doing their teams' work instead of leading.

Leaders × Annual Comp × % Time Rescuing

B · Bottleneck Tax

Cost of decisions that should have been made closer to the work.

Escalations/wk × 52 × Days Delayed (2) × Cost/Day

C · Turnover Tax

Replacement cost when over-functioning leaders burn out and leave.

Leaders × Turnover Rate × (Comp × Replacement Mult.)

D · Suppression Tax

Strategic output lost when leaders are stuck executing instead of developing.

Leaders × Annual Comp × 8% (conservative)

Why this calculator exists.

Most "leadership development" budgets get spent solving the wrong problem. The real drag on your P&L isn't underperforming leaders — it's over-functioning ones who carry their teams across the river every single day.

Wesley Paterson, CMC, has spent over two decades helping mid-market and enterprise organizations stop the rescue cycle and build anti-fragile teams. The Rescue Tax Calculator is the directional version of the diagnostic he runs inside paid engagements — enough to make the cost real, not enough to replace the work.

CMC · President, Paterson Consulting Inc. · Vice Chair, CMC Alberta · Author of The Hero's Rope
The Source Material

The Hero's Rope

Stop Carrying People Across the River and Start Teaching Them to Cross Themselves.
#1 Amazon Best Seller — Org. Change, April 2026

The 20 Rescue Behaviors framework. Helping vs. Rescuing™. The blueprint for anti-fragile teams.

Order on Amazon →