I think you're right, but I think you're stopping short of recognizing that maybe this is a reason why so many ICs have issues with the EM role. If the role of

I think you're right, but I think you're stopping short of recognizing that maybe this is a reason why so many ICs have issues with the EM role. If the role of an EM is to be a Shield Against Complexity for the team, then two things are induced to happen more frequently: 1) The EM looks up far more often than down. 2) The ICs miss out on collaboration which could be critically valuable to their projects, careers, and broader understanding of the business. But that's the average! Some EMs pat themselves on the back and say "look at all these meetings y'all didn't have to attend, so you could focus and get the good work done all day" when in reality they didn't do anything remotely near the title of their role: Engineering Management. Managing the Engineers; not managing project dependencies, not managing leadership, not managing politics, but leading the people who report to them. Great engineers swim in that complexity; and great EMs expose their team to (the relevant parts of) it.