> Middle managers have to not just follow it, but enthusiastically agree with it, even if they think it's stupid or counterproductive. Clearly, my colleagues

> Middle managers have to not just follow it, but enthusiastically agree with it, even if they think it's stupid or counterproductive. Clearly, my colleagues and I are doing it wrong, then. If you enthusiastically agree with everything the higher levels hand down, you are completely superfluous. In any decent organization, it is your job to disagree when necessary. You are higher up than your reports, so you have a bit more context that helps communicate/explain things that come down from "on high". At the same time, you're still close enough to the trenches that you can speak up about issues that just weren't visible at the level above you. Yes, ultimately higher management can override all your decisions. But if they are any good at their job, they listen to your input. That's the whole point of having layers of management - separate abstraction levels, and the ability to communicate important concerns up and down the abstraction ladder. Yes, the manager who's just the megaphone to "his master's voice" is a common pattern, but it's not the pattern of a good manager. The same way that the copy/paste "programmer" is a common pattern, but not the pattern of a good programmer.