We’ve all seen the "Hero Programmer"—the only person who can fix that one legacy system at 3 AM. While it feels good to be needed, in a Lead role, being a hero is a failure.

True leaders build systems that don’t need them to survive.

* If you are the only one who can fix it, you are a bottleneck.

* If the system runs smoothly while you are on holiday, you are leading.

Shift your focus from being "the expert" to "the enabler." Documentation, mentorship, and clean architecture are how you scale your impact.

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