It's entirely possible - I usually feel like I'm routinely failing at management. My organization seems to disagree though, as they continue to give me the highest possible performance ratings, pay me absurd amounts of money, my team's gotten public commendations on its work from 7 levels up the management chain, the anonymous 360 surveys from reports/peers/etc. say that I'm better than 90% of other managers, etc. That alone may tell you something about the incentive structures in large corporations (and the economy at large).

I usually like to think of it as winning at a fucked up system. But then, that might be pretty illustrative of the title and article here.