i fell into a managerial position once, and i was the lovey-dovey wanting everybody to be happy type. i was bad at it, but there were two major factors that lead me down that path:

1) I didn't want to be a manager and it was the path of least resistance

2) the company that was large and stable enough where getting peak-performance out of everybody wasn't necessary to keep things going smoothly

  2b) the company had so many layers of beureaucracy, that actually getting peak performance wouldn't have actually improved anything