[matneyx]

I totally forgot about the PM / PO role -- probably because I've literally never had one that did their job. I've had someone in that role, sure, but they were either too busy trying to climb the corporate ladder to care about their teams (and were eventually let go), were puppets for the team lead (the lead who eventually left the company because they didn't have a PO / PM who actually did their job, go figure), or were too busy trying to micro-manage the dev teams (and, again, were eventually let go).

But a cultural issue is ultimately what I was trying to say, and you kinda nailed it with the idea that cultural issues generally stem from someone not doing their job, or trying too hard to do someone else's.