A pattern I’ve watched play out more than once: the strongest writer on a team gets promoted, and privately decides that management is a distraction from the real work. So they keep a hand on every deliverable, review everything, and stay the final word on quality.
It feels responsible. It’s actually the most expensive bottleneck you can build. Every decision routed through you is one your team didn’t get to own, and the day something shifts faster than you can keep up — a reorg, a new product line, a pace you can’t front-run — everyone stalls, waiting on a person who’s suddenly underwater.
If you’re not the one assigning and inspecting every task, the job becomes clearing the road: killing blockers faster than they pile up, spending your own political capital so your writers don’t have to. I’ve started grading my days on that instead of on anything I personally produced. A good day is one where the team shipped because I got things out of the way. Reading what each person needs, removing friction, telling the truth early even when it’s awkward — that’s a craft of its own, and unlike your individual output, it compounds across everyone you lead.