I actually had one good manager, we're friends beyond just our professional environment. So indeed, that seems to be a valid case. Unfortunately, all the other managers felt much less friendly and kept spreading their authority rather than trying to elevate individual contributors. There's so little a manager can do when it comes to making big decisions. After all, a low level manager is more of a dispatcher rather than a decision maker. It is a role where you have to say "no" most of the time. That "no" usually looks like "let me see what I can do and I'll get back to you... never" or "there's a long way to go still but in the mean time, could you look at this because that's what we need to do..." type of answers. It's a good shield for senior managers so they don't have to deal with all these requests and can focus on the roadmap.

It's a pull relationship versus a push relationship from IC's to managers, these days it feels like IC's don't get anything unless they ask for it. This should be the other way around. There's no team building anymore, no more team spirit we're almost in competition mode with our colleagues rather than learning from each other.