I have avoided going the management route because I have a very strong fear of losing touch with the deep technical aspects of software engineering, which I love and have been doing my entire professional career. As a lead developer now, my role has changed in that I interface more with product owners and management, so I can already see that I need to delegate quite a bit, which makes me feel uneasy since I want to be the one doing those tasks. On top of that, as a lead I am expected to know it all while also somehow delegating.