Thats not true. I have worked in many teams and organizations where manaagement and direct supervisors are well regarded. There are inevitably comparative weak links, but thats not the same as incompetence.

I don't.

Our upper management is incompetent because they are so removed from what we actually do, and show no interest in learning about it.

But my immediate manager is very far from incompetent.

The place I work now has a good mix of hyper-competent 1st level managers. Its almost weird, but for sure its a result of the expectation that "team leads" or whatever you want to call them are also managers.

I'm not sure I agree with having the technical guy be the personal manager, but when they only have a couple direct reports a good percentage seem be able to herd the cats semi competently.

That isn't to say there aren't plenty of disasters, but when it works, it works fairly well. I guess you just have to be willing to throw away some of your best technical people when it turns out they don't make good managers, or they turn into just another layer of middle mgmt that needs to be cut in a few years.

I don't - my boss is great person, good manager and great programmer.

My team, boss included, is one of few reasons keeping me at this company.

I think its fairer to say you can only appreciate a truely competent boss once you have suffered an incompetent one.

Is there a distinction between competency and being any good at your job? I would hesitate to call (most of) my management chain incompetent. I would also hesitate to call (most of) my management any good at their job.

That's not true. In fact I think ALL of my previous bosses have been extremely competent and super smart. Maybe I've been lucky or maybe I've had realistic expectations.

Not true. I had good bosses, neutral bosses and bad boss. Narrowly dodged awful one.

I don't. He can be a bit of a space cadet at times and sometimes get stuck on the wrong things, but I would never call him incompetent.