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When I faced that transition, I had to realize that my role had shifted. Rather than doing things myself (which I was good at), I had to help others do things. This let us get more done. I also had to insulate them from the BS of the business - this was my job to participate and filter as appropriate. This took a little while, and I ended up preferring doing the work myself - so I reverted elsewhere.

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I’m building a new department to scale out services that I solely did under another department. Coming from a small company in a specialized field this means that my attention is split between managing the few under me, still actually doing the work and other admin BS. As a former doer and control freak the hardest thing has been getting out of my peoples’ ways and untangling myself from the work.

A close second is, as previously pointed out, eliminating as much additional business BS as possible. Our current director likes to really have communal discussions on business direction and development, which I’m not opposed to, but the number of meetings is too much. I’ve been clawing back my time ever since the transition.

That's indeed challenging. Is there anything specific that helped you do the untangling?

And on the company front - how do you stay in touch with the overall direction while minimising those meetings?

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