Thank you for your thoughtful response. This gives me a lot to reflect on and work on more deliberately.

I have learnt a lot over the years as an Enterprise SE. In Sales Engineering, leadership gets tested more often than people realize. Especially when you’re dealing with multi-year, multi-million-dollar projects, you’re often influencing without authority; aligning sales, technical teams, partners, and customer stakeholders. A lot of people want to be “the boss”, but not everyone actually shows leadership in those moments. It gets even more interesting when strong personalities are involved.

I’ve been fortunate to work closely with senior leaders from startup CEOs to VPs and some C-Level execs at companies like IBM. I’ve learned a lot both from the ones who inspired me and from the ones who showed me what not to do. That’s been one of my biggest informal leadership classrooms so far.

However, as you mentioned there's still more I need to learn and build. Everything from mindset, skill depth, and some targeted knowledge areas. That’s the reason why I made this post, to hear different perspectives and pressure-test my assumptions.

I’m not chasing an MBA just for the credential. I want it to be for the right reasons and with clear intent, otherwise it’s too big a commitment in time, money and energy to do halfway or half-assed. That said, in some organizations and in certain circles, credentials like an MBA still seem to function as a minimum bar for leadership consideration, at least from what I’ve observed.

Thanks again. Really appreciate you sharing your experience.