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People really hate the idea that leadership isn’t always the best place to be. “But with leadership you multiply your impact!” Yeah yeah yeah.

I just like building things, convincing people of what should be built is another matter entirely. There is so much stupid horseshit you have to cut through, due to the multiplicity of interests in play at any given time. I’d rather fight with a buggy framework or poorly designed toolchain or whatever.

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Well said. If you look into some of the research and theories on leadership, you find a very different picture. You could someone a leader any time they have influence over people toward a goal. With this in mind, you can see that an "individual contributor" can definitely be a leader.

However, in business, leadership is often conflated with "legitimate power" (as opposed to expert or referent power), meaning that the person holds a title and is assigned direct reports. Titles and employees are not necessary for leadership.

I wish that engineering departments were better at highlighting this. A person with practice and experience can be a leader by simply working hard, setting a good example, giving input in team meetings, etc.

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