[chef-steph]

Not OP, but have worked in a similar situation run by ex-Amazon leadership. Project leaders focus mainly on writing docs on their "ideas". These docs are then spread around to other project and org leaders. Most of their time is spent reading or commenting on these and planning meetings for feedback. Typically the last people to read these documents are engineers who then have to make sense of and build whatever was laid out in the documents. Many times after all this is done the project is then shelved or engineering shuts it down so it was a waste of time.

Project managers can then point to these documents as promotion material and take credit for "leadership".

Obviously I'm being a bit harsh here and that in no way represents the average - but it is something I've seen too often.