Think about people arguing about politics while drunk, for example, and you will see that often a lot of absolutism and hypocrisy will come out just to win that

Think about people arguing about politics while drunk, for example, and you will see that often a lot of absolutism and hypocrisy will come out just to win that single argument. Well, put in a context where you may feel that it has to be "someone's fault" (e.g a failed project or late task), the ego/hypocrisy/pride (you name it) will take over empathy. I think it has nothing to do with employee/manager or inside/outside spectrum, although those will probably exagerate the phenomenon, but it's just social dynamics in a stressful environment. I'm sure the manager is happy to have his high performing "techie" when things go right and the techie is happy to have his manager happy.