> That might be true but unless you're the owner of the company or have a significant stake I don't see why you wouldn't do the same as an individual contributor?

And here you hit on one of the core tenets of a good manager. How to align things so that what's good for the individual is good for the company? It starts with the owner/shareholders and cascades down the hierarchy.

It's a bit of a "tragedy of the commons"-type problem. If everyone optimizes what's best for themselves then the company likely goes out of business, which isn't good for most of the employees.

A good incentive structure isn't going to make a terrible manager into a good one but it can have a big impact around the edges. Including things like "employee retention" in the evaluation of a manager helps to align things - now if the manager wants her bonus she has to treat the employees well and help find a balance between what's good for the company & what's good for the employee individually.

That's correct, but it has to come from top-down. It is unlikely you'll make any change from the bottom (especially as that change would negatively impact your superior who is also playing this game), so you're better off playing the game too.

+1 to this

I ageee managers optimize for their own success, at the expense of the company, but how does that make them morons?

Sure the company is hurt and work grinds to a halt, but are you saying the rational thing to do is take actions that don’t optimize for your own success?

I should have been more specific. A lot of them are morons, which is orthogonal and more of a problem than being self-serving. A competent self-serving manager is possibly not best for the company, but might be great to work with (under) and still way better than a moron.