Managers are imbued with more formal power than their reports and as such should be held to a higher standard. Simply passing on pressure and not standing up for your team will never inspire loyalty.

Taylorism and top-down management are culturally embedded in many companies. With software eating the world you have companies who are ill-equipped to deal with other ways of working and do not understand how writing software is fundamentally different than building a house. This all inevitably leads to cultural conflicts.