That sounds like maybe a failing for these particular managers? I guess every company is different, but it sounds like your managers may be failing to delegate properly, and you end up with a corporate structure where every step up the pyramid means doing what all the previous levels do, plus more. Often that has pretty detrimental effects from failure to properly delegate, but it doesn't have to be that way. That might be a trap that managers who were engineers have to work harder at to not fall into.