Pertaining to management….
Corporations don't promote or hire the best.
Corporations don't promote or hire the most popular.
Corporations don't promote the most talented.
Corporations don't promote for the cheapest labor to fit the role.
They don't promote based on tenure.
Corporations select people for management roles based on their subscription to the corporate status quo. For management roles they promote and higher the blind, the fearful, those incapable of empathy and the subservient.
Maybe I'm just picking bad companies but all of the leadership personnel I've experienced in corporate America exist in that seat because they have one of the qualifiers I listed above. That makes them a good candidate for the corporate apparatus of control that is middle management.