Early in my time leading a legal team, my instinct on a hard call was to escalate it — get cover, share the risk, let someone more senior own the outcome. I learned the cost of that habit the slow way. Every escalation upward teaches your team that hard calls live above them, and it teaches executives that you are a conduit, not counsel. A team that watches its leader pass every difficult decision upstairs stops making difficult decisions at all.
So I set a simple threshold: escalate only when the decision exceeds your authority, creates enterprise risk you cannot own, or needs a call only a senior leader can make. Everything else, you decide, you write down why, and you report the outcome. Executives trust the counsel who brings them solved problems and only true exceptions — not the one who brings them every problem. Owning the call at your level is not recklessness. It is the job you were hired to do.