Something completely different, but because of a mid-career shift in and out of humanitarian aid logistics, I found myself as a boss of bosses when I was normally an individual contributor and project manager.

What I learned was that communicating your vision (or implementing the vision of your boss) is not enough, you've got to be in there next to your people and show you understand why they are not able to get to where you are leading them, so you can find new ways to unblock things and get them to do what you need them to do.

Also: sometimes the only way to prevent shit from rolling downhill onto your people is to take it on yourself. You pay a real price for the perks of rank, if you take your responsibility to your people seriously.

What I learned about being an IC is to have some empathy for management: they can be trying but the results can look like they are not because of the enormous inertia of groups of people.