We potentially agree on quite a bit and maybe might not talk past each other. With regards to our differences, I view software management more as a leadership

We potentially agree on quite a bit and maybe might not talk past each other. With regards to our differences, I view software management more as a leadership role rather than as a decision making role. We won't quibble that leaders need to make important decisions, we both agree there. Yet, providing direction is different from deciding direction. That is my point, software managers are deciding neither "what" nor "how", and thus their role is (IMHO) primarily more leadership rather than decision making. By one metric, I'd suggest software managers are most responsible for helping their team maximize the ratio of time spent focused on-task to the time spent dealing on noise. While that is an interesting metric, it's still hard to tease out the effects of organization and team structure from the role of just one person who is meant to largely coordinate (AKA: direct or lead) and enhance those networking effects.