ie - people that are incompetent at their role of people managers.

Why is incompetence so discussed for ICs but rarely for management?

Maybe if more managers were competent and less conflict-averse they would do their jobs better and cycle out incompetence and bad intentions faster.

Ah wait, but middle managers specifically choose conflict-averse, easy to control, domesticated people. That's why you find this particular type of personality in management so often.

So the issue is incentives as well and bigger than initially thought.