The real underlying reason is easy. You know how to really excel as a developer, you pretty much have to be in for love of the craft? Management's the same way,

The real underlying reason is easy. You know how to really excel as a developer, you pretty much have to be in for love of the craft? Management's the same way, but instead of a focus on building software, it's a focus on fulfilling a sense of power. People who are motivated by the pursuit of power put more effort into achieving positions of power, until basically any position of power is filled by the power hungry. It's a fundamental failure of every hierarchy. Sometimes there are temporary exceptions, but over time everything reverts to the mean. In office, managers get to look out over their little fiefdoms. It's a physical space, with physical people, and it's theirs. And their competitors (other managers) can see their domain, and understand where they stand in the pecking order. In WFH settings, the whole thing becomes far more abstract. The manager's desire for elevated position isn't met, and they become paranoid that their competition can't see their status.