I worked for a guy like that. Sometimes technical decisions would bubble up and I'd get mad that he wouldn't resolve them but push them back down. I started to think he didn't do much of anything. Turns out he spent most of his time in higher level meetings finding out what projects were coming and ensuring we were properly staffed and projects got scheduled reasonably. He'd go into a meeting uninvited because "this project doesn't involve software" only to discover that there would be a software component to the project and make sure that was covered. Turns out once I knew what he was actually doing I'd say he was one of the more effective managers I've worked for. Things usually ran smoothly and random shit never dropped from other parts of the company unexpectedly. He did zero engineering (but he had previously), and most of what he did was unseen to us. Life was good because we lived behind an invisible shield.