I would go as far as to say there really are only two things a lower- to mid-level manager should focus on. First--and this is by far the most important thing--she should make sure her subordinates have the best possible environment to do their jobs. The second responsibility is hiring the right people. With these two ingredients in place, whatever she does on top of this would actually harm the performance of her team.
What usually surprises me about large organizations is how little power the managers have over these two points. A manager in charge of internal applications development may negotiate the functional specs with the business, but have no influence whatsoever over the hardware that's supplied to the developers.
What usually surprises me about large organizations is how little power the managers have over these two points. A manager in charge of internal applications development may negotiate the functional specs with the business, but have no influence whatsoever over the hardware that's supplied to the developers.