The problem is that there is no scalable, reliable way to distinguish between "baggage" management and productive management in any large organization. Many have tried to solve that problem and no one has really succeeded. So cutting out management layers tends to indiscriminately eliminate the good with the bad. If you can figure out a better solution then you'll make a fortune as a management consultant.

Lower level employees often think they know which managers are baggage, and sometimes they're right, but often they're not seeing the whole picture. A manager who appears to be baggage from one perspective is sometimes performing crucial activities that are only visible from other perspectives. Management value added often can't be objectively measured but yet it exists all the same.