This sub made me realise that being told I'm "not management material" is actually a compliment

So I used to work for a large bank in my country (Aus) and had come in as a Business Analyst, done some major projects, gotten bumped up to Snr BA, but was bashing my head against the wall of a "management" position. I couldn't work it out, I'm a fairly natural leader, personable, take direction well and can articulate it clearly to others. I've mentored younger staff, helped them with their issues at work, etc etc. Eventually I got fed up, left and swapped into software development, never looked back, and I truly do love my job.

But now, reading about all these managers described here, and it made me realise that "leader" is actually the antithesis of "manager". A leader is meant to pull people up, get the best out of them, work with their weaknesses and build on their strengths to empower them. Managers are there to keep people in line, to ensure that company policy is being kept to, and staff are just a body, not an actual person. Pretty sure that me expressing my disgust at just how inane and ineffective certain company policies were, is what gave me away as "not management material", and thanks to this sub I'm realising just how much of a compliment that is.

Now I'm working as a Product Owner/BA/Service Designer across a bunch of projects and I love it. I get to lead in the best way possible, sure I'm directing the boat, but it's truly collaborative between myself and the devs. They're perfectly empowered to tell me that I'm wrong or that something just can't be done in the time I want it done. To get the most out of the team I have to work with them, any authoritative attempts are completely counter-productive. We don't crunch, the workday is the workday, you're expected to produce X amount per week, you get it done when suits you and noone is going to question you on what time you got in etc (it's 75%+ WFH anyway).

I know I'm not typical of this sub in who and what I do, but really appreciate the messaging that this sub does.