Comment by ismailmaj

What I'm getting from you is that, given competence (and here it's a manager being able to make himself dispensable) things "work out".

I tend to agree but I have a feeling that it takes a certain number of bad apples min-maxing KPIs to destroy the system.

When the manager evaluates you based on how many lines of code you submitted because the VP decided that the teams with the most code submitted deserve a bigger bonus, then you stop doing the rational thing and start playing the game, it may be possible for the middle manager to play around a bad VP but from an IC level it's rarely worth it, you might invest your small political capital only to be burned afterwards.

I've seen way too often in my career benevolent IC ignoring the politics, getting things done only to be last to be recognized when it's clear things would be falling apart without them. Even worse, doing the right thing might keep/hide the dysfunctional system for longer.

Sorry for being overly negative, I like the theory but failure points while rare are common enough for me to have seen them a few times, if things are not rotten it probably holds water.