I don’t think that it matters if you want to be upper management if you’re bad at middle management. I may be wrong, but I’m pretty sure that upper management gets promoted from middle management. You have to be good at one to be able to become the other. If you are a good middle manager, then you have the option to work your way up the ladder, but that’s the only way. It takes knowledge of ground work in order to know the reality of what’s possible for the long term. Personally it depends on the company and what I’d be doing. Different life stages would mean different desires to consider your job fulfilling.