> I've also had this same style of manager become a rate limiting bottleneck by forcing _all_ cross-team decision making to route through him. I've seen that

> I've also had this same style of manager become a rate limiting bottleneck by forcing _all_ cross-team decision making to route through him. I've seen that work incredibly well when the manager in question did keep up on his technical skills. It can result in a very well designed and consistent system. It also burned out the dev manager in question after two and a half years. A strong talented leader can make a huge difference. Applying the lessons of the past means a lot of engineering mistakes can be avoided. Also, at some point, decisions do have to be made. There will be a disagreement on the team about a direction to take, and having a benevolent dictatorship becomes very useful. Especially in a corporate setting where forking and doing both paths can be disastrous (both paths get underfunded and fail), or just not viable.