Very true. It's the same with lawyers: they're mortally afraid of some higher-up lawyer casting doubt on their approval of something, so they automatically say "out of an abundance of caution" and disapprove it.

However much we trash Google now, I lay out in https://albertcory50.substack.com/p/culture-at-google-part-o...

how ten managers in a row approved my budget for the movies, on the grounds that "this is good for the whole company." Then at the very end, one succumbed to Middle Manager Syndrome. I went over his head.