There's often an alignment problem where upper management often has some stake/ownership in the business being successful, where the lower/middle managers might

There's often an alignment problem where upper management often has some stake/ownership in the business being successful, where the lower/middle managers might see their work as just a salaried job, and hence not as driven to work for the success of the company, and might optimize for things like their own ego when it costs the company money. There's only so much upper management can do to set incentives (Goodhart's law) without micromanaging the middle managers.