In a typical environment, the clearest path for growth is leadership.

The problem with focusing too heavily on your hard skills and your resume and not enough on your approach, your mindset, and your professional ideals typically arises around the time when career trajectory and growth begin being taken into consideration. Imagine this scenario — your team leader / manager / boss sits down with you and asks you where you want to be in 5 years. This isn’t just an interview question to set up a joke in a sitcom; a good leader wants you to grow, and wants to help you achieve your goals.

Leadership is a tough subject to approach, partially due to the bent ideology that many people hold with regard to leaders, managers, and their perception of those whose job it is to tell others what to do. In a work environment where leadership rules with an iron fist emblazoned with “because I said so,” valleys form between C-level, middle management, and ‘employees.’ This makes leaders feared, and the concept of leadership tantalizing for the wrong reasons.

One thing to know is that management != leadership. Think about the best teacher(s) you’ve ever had. Were they great because they cracked the whip and everyone was afraid of them, or did you love coming to their class because it felt like they were truly speaking to you? A leader may seem higher on the food chain, but the only real difference between a leader and someone being led is that the former’s responsibilities are tied to the growth, structure, and support of those they lead. Ideally, clerical decisions relating to pay, benefits, and discipline are not on a leader’s plate very often — keep that in mind the next time you’re fantasizing about a role where you tell everyone else what to do, and you still get to be 100% committed to shipping design deliverables or code. In 99/100 circumstances, this is a pipe dream.