The Moment I Realised I Was Leading, Not Just Coding

It didn’t happen in a meeting. It wasn’t announced with a title. There was no handover, no ceremony. But one day at Activus, mid-project, I looked around and realised: people were looking to me for answers. And I was giving them.

When I joined Activus as a contractor, the brief was simple: support the migration of a Windows Forms system to ASP.NET MVC. But as the project evolved, it became clear that the need went beyond code. The internal team was grappling with new paradigms - web architecture, MVC patterns, UI responsiveness, and the general shift in mindset that comes with building for the web.

I started by leading technical conversations, offering explanations for design choices and helping others navigate the new codebase. Then came the whiteboard sessions. The one-to-one training. The hands-on walkthroughs of MVC routing and why static classes were problematic in web contexts. The team needed support and I had the experience to guide them.

What struck me wasn’t that I was doing this, but how naturally it happened. No one had assigned me as a mentor. I wasn’t the team lead. But I filled the gap, and in doing so, became the person people turned to.

That was the moment I realised I wasn’t just coding anymore. I was leading.

Not because I had a title, but because I had trust. Because I could explain, not just execute. Because I could listen as well as direct. And because I cared about the team’s success as much as the project’s.

This realisation took me back to university - where a few of my friends were having trouble understanding the programming module. Just like at Activus, we gathered around a whiteboard while I explained the fundamentals of development, logical operators and object orientation. Just like then, I was in my element.

That realisation changed how I saw myself - and how I approached every role after. I began to look beyond the sprint backlog and started thinking about team dynamics, capability gaps, and how to elevate those around me. I didn’t just want to build software. I wanted to build environments where great software could be built.

Leadership, I learned, isn’t always something you’re given. Sometimes, it’s something you grow into by doing the right thing at the right moment—especially when no one else is doing it.

That was my moment. And I’ve carried it with me ever since.