I agree with you on this. I worked on a small team of 3 people and we all reported directly to a product manager. She was great. Not an engineer, but more than capable of knowing what we were talking about. And she's just a nice person and respected us as much as we respect her. But she was a great manager because she would point us at a problem and then get out of the way. She also took our feedback so we really felt like we were part of the process in what we built.

Fast forward to now, our team was absorbed into a much larger group. There's 4 frontend engineers, then they take one of them and make him the "manager". So they're back to 3 engineers. None of us feel like we have any say any more in what we're building.

I finally realized a few weeks ago what my problem with him is, and it's that he should be reporting to me. He's a nice enough guy, and an ok developer, but definitely not a good manager.

I'm taking the lesson in the article and moving to another company soon where I can look people in the eye and feel like they know what they're doing.