Everything you bring to your boss is an escalation. You may not think of it that way, especially because as you’ve grown in your career you’ve often had managers tell you they want to know what’s going on. There are meetings and processes in place for you to communicate constantly to your manager. As a senior leader, the expectation of constant communication changes and your boss will see everything you bring to her as something that requires her time.

If you have an understanding boss, escalating a lot of things to her won’t be an issue. She’ll be capable of hearing you say “Just so you know, you don’t have to do anything.” But if your boss is like many executives, when you escalate something the question will be “what do you want me to do about it?” You create confusion when the answer is “Nothing.”

This lesson became most clear to me as my own role got bigger. I was in a role that I had to choose what I would do and what I wouldn’t. There were many projects I just couldn’t spend my time on even though I was responsible for the eventual result. I relied on others, especially my direct reports, to get stuff done without involving me at all. In my less understanding moments, I recall being frustrated when one of my staff would involve me and I could find no reason for my inclusion. It felt wasteful of my limited time, and nobody wants that to be how they’re viewed.

As a technical leader, your boss expects you to be good at your job. Your boss expects you to be handling things all the time that don’t require his involvement (or even knowledge). Unlike when you were more junior, you don’t need to bring everything to your boss. You get credit when things are quiet; you get scrutiny when things are noisy and heading off the rails. It doesn’t always feel great to skip over stuff you want credit for accomplishing. You'd like to highlight how well you navigated some tricky problem.

I recall a role I had as the product development executive reporting to the president of our division. I would bring concerns or challenges I had with my colleagues to our meetings. I expected him to want to be informed about the functioning of our peer group (his direct reports). We didn’t have a regular staff meeting, and I honestly didn’t see how else he was going to get this information.

Over time I realized that raising disagreements or challenges I had with my peers he left with the perception was that I couldn’t handle the situation. I came across as tentative or even sometimes as not a team player. I gradually changed the conversation to engage my boss more often in what he was looking to talk about, and his perception of me changed. There was less of the messy stuff I could handle for him in our conversations.

Be thoughtful of what issues you bring to your boss. As you gain more responsibility, you are more likely to be expected to solve problems among your peer group without your boss’ involvement. In a more junior role, you would look to your boss for clarity of roles. Your boss would provide decisions on how to move forward. Most executives are comfortable letting their team make those decisions. And many executives will see it as underperformance if they have to weigh in more than they think they should.