More on job front

After being on contract for 6 months, I received an offer from the new manager. The old manager moved on to another project with in the company. The new manager is OK. At first she low-balled me but after some discussion and me giving her a copy of my resume she was able to get much closer to the money I was making as a contractor. I accepted the position and am now an employee of the company. I am not sure how I feel about that. My wife likes me being an employee better than a contractor. It is more stable than contracting but I am not sure of the viability of the company and whether I want to be a long term employee of the company. I have challenged myself to see if I can take over the technical lead role of the project. The current technical lead is a nice guy but does not know what a technical lead does. He rarely speaks up in meetings. He answers questions but does not follow through with newer developers. I have been a technical lead off and on for many years and think I could do a much better job. Well, we shall see where this goes from here.