How do I lead when I miss doing the design work?

You became the lead designer. Now you spend your days managing a team's vision and deadlines instead of designing the systems you got into this to build. That is a quiet grief, and it is a common one, the reward for being great at the craft was being pulled away from it. Be honest that something real was traded. You loved the making itself: the puzzle of a system coming together in your own hands. Leading is a different pleasure, slower and more removed, and on the hard days it can feel like all deadline and no design. Missing the work is not a sign you took the wrong job. It is a sign you genuinely loved the work. But your design mind is not wasted in this seat; it is aimed differently now. Shaping a team's vision so their systems come out great is design at a larger scale, even when it does not feel like it. Lean into that, and protect a little hands-on design for yourself, a prototype, a small system, something you build with your own hands to stay whole. Carve out that time deliberately this month. You can lead the vision and still be a maker. Do not let the title take the craft entirely.