My attitude is that my job is to serve as a consultant. I train my employees to do their job. I tell them what our goals are, and teach them to understand how the organization works and what we want to do. Then I tell them what they are responsible for, and as suggested by others, I try to match responsibilities to skills. I also give them a choice and ask them to work out details of who does what amongst themselves.
Then I sit back and fluther. Sometimes they come to me with problems they can’t handle (which I encourage), and I use that as a time to teach them new stuff. After a while, they don’t need to come to me any more, except for really strange problems.
I see a few clients myself, and I also think about larger goals of the organization, and I invest time in educating myself. I practice my writing and my analytical skills, and wait for the really interesting problems to show themselves.
That’s how I see management. Not everyone can do it that way. Some of you need to spend a lot more time working directly on tasks instead of spending speculative time preparing yourself for whatever may happen next. I’m a consultant. I train my employees personally, so I know them well and I trust them. If they mess up, it’s usually my fault for not telling them something. I never blame them for messing up, but seek to use it as a chance to teach them something new. Of course, I’m lucky in having employees who are pretty damn smart!