Becoming responsible for the technical lead of a number of teams. I was always strong in solving things whilst implementing. Doing and thinking interchangeably.

Becoming responsible for the technical lead of a number of teams. I was always strong in solving things whilst implementing. Doing and thinking interchangeably. Getting to the root or final design in an iterative fashion. However, that doesn't really scale. So now as an architect I have to come up with a design or analysis without coding it out first. That requires a different set of skills. Second, it helped me grow from always late to (mostly) always early. No help in sharing a design after the feature implementation is already started. It's either time lost on whatever was done already, or time lost discussing how to adapt it so it fits. You should discuss before you start, so as an architect that makes you responsible to prepare before that moment and facilitate. Be sure to discuss designs with your team(s) though, don't go all ivory tower on them. Third, it forced me to grow in the social aspect. I am only as helpful as the information I can bring to the engineers in my team(s). I learned I have to understand the individual engineers, how they work, their strengths and weaknesses, their preferences. I learned that showing genuine interest in them and their wellbeing is a great way to achieve this. I have never feared the coffee corner or desk/room/lunch talks so it was mostly paying some additional attention to their responses, talks, interests, etc. I daily use this information to select the right person for the job, adjust my explanation to fit their needs, learn who likes more intervention and who I should (and could) simply trust and run free.