In a book called "The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey,"
there is a discussion of "executive sandboxing." Under stress,
managers sometimes preferred to do the work they had done before
being promoted. After all, they'd been good at it, and it gave
them the chance to show others what a swell job they could do.
Plus it was easier than facing the challenges of confronting
the bigger picture. But you do get sand in your socks.