Topper

I'll start with what worries me the most at night.. Confidence. Before I started managing years ago, I performed the tasks my reports did. I was very good at what I did. Very detailed oriented, lots of drive, I had real "passion for quality" as they like to put it in the software industry. I did my work, and I stood by my results. If my work was questioned by others, I could (and did) immediately disagree with them.

They were mistaken.
They miss-configured something.
There was nothing wrong with my work.

Why? Because I had done the work myself, I had carefully and diligently performed every task like it was second nature to me. I have confidence in the work that I did.

Remember the saying "If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself"? Well I believe it's mostly true. People may do something "right", but they will almost never do it the same way you would. Doesn't mean the job is done incorrectly, just means a different level of detail may have gone into it, work may not have been double checked like you would have done, etc

Skip ahead a few years to today. I routinely have to stand up for the work my team does. Am I mostly confident in the work they do? Yes. For the most part I have a great team, with a lot of bright, talented people. But I will never be as confident as if I had done the work myself. People make mistakes. I've made them. But individually, those mistakes are rare (for some more rare then others). Get a team of people together though, and you see mistakes more often. Make one person responsible for that entire team, and I see mistakes the TEAM makes all the time.

As a manager, I'm held accountable for the work my team performs. If someone messes up, I can't point my finger and lay the blame on them. A good manager takes responsibility for their team. I can't take credit and reap the rewards for all the good work they do, and yet wash my hands of the mistakes they make. And a good manager does not blame their employees for mistakes the manager makes either (as Nimetic and DEI37 unfortunately have to deal with).

And that's just scratching the surface. I could go on for a lot longer about so many things, but don't want to hijack the thread. It’s a topic all unto itself.