From IC to management and back: an architect's perspective on the pendulum

i've had a bit of a pendulum career path over the last six years, moving from Staff Engineer to Engineering Manager and then back to Principal Engineer. each transition taught me a lot. the initial move from IC to management was a huge surprise, dealing with people problems instead of code, and the constant context switching. coming back to IC, i found my management experience incredibly valuable for understanding team dynamics and organizational constraints when designing systems. has anyone else made these back-and-forth moves? what were the biggest lessons learned? how do you think management experience influences your architectural approach, and vice versa?