I wish every company was a direct as "I’d really like you to Lead." You reminded me of the time I almost wound up in management. My managers at my last job kept giving me leadership responsibilities. It really confused me - I kept thinking "what's wrong with my code that they don't want me writing it anymore?" I started working harder and harder, cleaning up bugs, assisting other projects with their features, working on any code I could get my hands on. Still, they continued to give me management tasks, so I left before had a heart attack from stress or got a bad review. I found out later that they were trying to reward me, but - for reasons I still don't understand - couldn't explain what they were doing (I did ask a lot). I guess I'm not ready to evolve. :)