>I think that any large bureaucracy, including ones in big corps, attract people like this.

This is certainly true of my last employer. Let's just say it's a famous Fortune 500 company, in heavy industry.

I have seen a great many people promoted to their level of incompetence.

I had the combination of having good technical skills but terrible organizational political skills.

This company currently has a director of Cyber Security who doesn't know what ICMP is or why it's not feasible to block all ICMP traffic on internal firewalls & switches.

Having no technical abilities but outstanding political skills have served her well.