I find management only really ends up being a problem if they get too deeply involved in the contents of technical quality work. If they're limited to budget allocation it's actually better to have them involved.

I almost always tell management that by default I'm spending, say, 30% of my time on technical quality and ask if they'd like to dial it up or down temporarily because of a holiday or a deadline they can. I will track this and show it to whomever asks (e.g. their boss and boss's boss might be interested if they've explicitly asked for 8 straight weeks of 0% work on quality).