Your job as a manager is to “plan, organize, control, and direct.” Don’t let yourself waste valuable time by falling back on what you did before you became a manager. We know you enjoy it and you are good at it. That’s why you were promoted. Now you need to concentrate your efforts on managing, not on “doing.”

The second half of the “don’t do anything” equation is how do you go about getting other people to do the “doing.”

Tell people what you want, not how to do it. You will find people more responsive and less defensive if you can give them guidance not instructions. You will also see more initiative, more innovation, and more of an ownership attitude develop over time.

From F. John Reh, management.about.com