Sounds like they're completely right, then. "Don't bother Steve unless you really need something from him", which is exactly what he wants.
Then why is Steve in a job in the first place? Such an attitude would find more traction in the contingent consulting world. At a job, where you're paid to deliver for your co-workers, it's asking to be laid off or fired.
It's less important (and implausible) that everybody act as the same game theoretic agent than that the team understands everybody's idiosyncratic shape and can compose those shapes into productive patterns.
You usually have to do very good work to be a Steve and hang onto your job, but very good work is rare and valuable, so if you do deliver on it, you can often be more assertive and draw some of the boundaries that more marginal team members can't get away with. It works because real-world teams are more like an organic ecosystem than a mechanical gear system.
But Steve is an informal manager, so he better be sure that he has the tacit approval of the actual manager for the team, or his actual manager's manager. Otherwise he's not doing his job, and this will eventually put him in conflict with exactly the people who have control over him.
And if Steve is your direct report, you better keep the situation under control, or Steve will eventually have to be let go and you will be made to look stupid for letting a talented contributor fall out of step with the team.
That being said, if I have to deal with the "command line" people by tellong them each and every step of the work they are supposed to do, more often than not I'm faster doing it myself. There are places for those people, places they actually provide a ton of value because strictly following procedure is paramount, things progress faster when people can get an assignment and everyone else can count a) the assigment being completed on time or b) everyone getting a heads if not.
Those other roles are tge easiest to automate, and by no means do they justify the salaries some people are expecting to be paid.
Alternately, he’s solely there because the HR requirements are onerous and take time, and he has dramatically misunderstood his importance and value. Or he used to do good work and thinks he is now irreplaceable because of domain knowledge.
In any case, as a manager, Steve is a needless disruption/drag and there is nearly no situation in which his work outshines his stated personality. The org would be better off without him.
Ask a fair salary, do what you can, act in good faith.
Success often follows being the person remembered as being helpful or useful.