Because people being self-disciplined and self-motivated annihilates the management layer. What do you manage when people manage themselves? You can be a project manager or you can be out of a job. They don't like that.
I think it was Joel Spolsky who said that a manager is someone who moves the chairs out of the way so that the individual contributors can do their work well.
I'm not a manager by title, but when I'm managing something, my objective is to get as many hassles out of the way as possible and reduce as much cognitive load off people as I can. The rest usually takes care of itself.
I'm guessing you've never been a software engineering manager, or was one at a crappy place? The more self managing they are, the better! It turns into a coach/mentorship role at that point.
I am guessing you have never worked at a giant corporation with 5 levels of useless middle managers that have no purpose if there are no office politics to manage?
Those are the managers that hate work from home. Not managers actually doing productive management.
> turns into a coach/mentorship role at that point.
Sure, if the managers have any experience at all doing the actual work. These days that is rare, middle management are all just MBAs who don’t have a clue how to do the work.
Again, signs you are working at a crappy place. Those places are incompetent and you should move to somewhere where it is competent.
I have actually been a manager at a big tech and a small start up, and yes there is politics at all sizes, but its extremely rare for an engineering manager to not have been an engineer previously. I was that manager, being the mentor.
I'm not a manager by title, but when I'm managing something, my objective is to get as many hassles out of the way as possible and reduce as much cognitive load off people as I can. The rest usually takes care of itself.