Skills - You may have only worked with bad managers because to be a good manager, much like anything else, requires certain abilities. While some have those it's practice and experience that make you really good.
> You can't wire up a house without the skills. You can't build a web app without knowing a whole lot of stuff, at least not within any time frame someone would pay you to make one in.
You sure can wire up a house without skills. The house will probably end up burning down due to the many mistakes you'll make but it doesn't mean it won't work. On the same token you can manage without skills, but those you manage will burn out, produce less, be unhappy, and pray that you'll disappear one day (or get fired).
Delegation isn't as simple as just telling others what to do, that's a gross misconception.
> You can have responsibilities, in which case you can justify doing anything so long as it fits into the responsibility and you can make your bosses believe that.
Really? Don't you feel behaving in such a way won't help the company you're helping build?
I do agree that finding things to do and potentially developing something that may not get the attention it needs is a good idea, but that's good for any stage of the business.