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.
Those are the managers that hate work from home. Not managers actually doing productive management.
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.
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.