[vishnugupta]

> I absolutely detest the whole farce of a manager claiming they’re “shielding the team” when really they’re just making critical decisions without informing their own team / gathering [real] consenshs.

That's clearly not done. What I referred to was decisions that were taken outside the control of the line manager; such as re-org, change in promo process. The line manager will not be part of such decision making process they are mostly taken at director level or above. The line manager though will be kept informed/warned of such changes about a few weeks in advance which is when I would start warning senior engineers in my team.

You will be surprised to learn that line managers have very little influence or say in most of the critical decisions taken. One of their responsibilities is to keep the team pacified i.e., to ensure the "shield" works both ways ;-)