I got bored with engineering because it became easy. The patterns always repeated, and I knew that the only thing standing between me and my desired outcome was a fully understood path of actions.
I don’t believe you have to reach this level across a wide domain, but you should be able to achieve it within some reasonably narrow technical scope. If you don’t, you will not be able to lead a technical team effectively. When you are in leadership, you may not always be on the hook for delivering, but you can win major support from your team if you are capable of diving in and doing something technically impressive from time to time. In addition, you will need to be able to teach engineers and guide technical implementation, which requires the ability to communicate clearly about deeply technical topics. I find that the less I know about a construct (think Law of Demeter, etc.) the less I’m able to communicate it to others or build solid arguments for or against it.
I think you must dig in and obsess about becoming great at engineering. My passion for this role is because of its meta nature. I love engineering and have built strong opinions about it over my career, and now I want to engineer a team of engineers who can see things similarly, and ultimately do greater things collectively. This wouldn’t be possible if I didn’t take the time to be a great engineer first.