Honestly, I've seen so many truly awful managers that I'd trust that the engineers "know better about how a business should be run"... from an operational stand

Honestly, I've seen so many truly awful managers that I'd trust that the engineers "know better about how a business should be run"... from an operational standpoint. However, there's the magical "sales" and "public relations" side which those same awful (operationally) managers usually excel at. When those managers have a strong CIO or operations guy by their side they're a killing team, but I've seen cases where they get sweet-talked by an atrocious ignorant CIO (and they can't see it because they're not knowledgeable themselves). I've also seen strong, well rounded CEOs... and many were engineers transitioned to management roles (with MBAs, etc).