Sort of agree, it's enough if they could at some point. If they keep an ear to the ground about how things work and what's possible, that goes a long way.
Just to clarify, I meant that if they at some point knew how to code, that goes a long way to understand the mindset. It doesn't matter as much if they could code their way out of a paper bag if you put them in front of a modern toolchain.
A general doesn't need to know how to fly a fighter jet. But it helps if they stay up to date on modern tactics.
Managers are the last people I'd want to learn on the job this heavily - they can't start from not knowing coding if they want to manage engineers.