This is only tangentially related to the main topic of the post, but thought I might ask for your thoughts on a similar dynamic.

My thesis is that companies should not be (or just be much less) functionally org'd—that is, not divided into Engineering, Marketing, Design, Sales, etc. And that this is the root-ish of many typical problems. I don't really need to argue that's true for my question, but given that most companies are that then leads to functional managers—ie. Engineering Manager or Director of Engineering. The role of that manager sometimes involves being in the weeds of specific work, but mostly doesn't. It's usually not architecting or coding, but mentoring and maybe allocating work. The latter of which might formally be a a responsibility, but is embedded in a network of other people's needs that does some pre-determining.

What does that manager do—and I suppose how do they sleep at night if they care about their work—given they're the mentor and blocker of their IC's rise? What I mean is that if the career path for the IC is sorta mythical, how does that manager guide them? If they're honest, then they're also kinda describing their own role as a bit pointless. That would be a reason the IC shouldn't aspire to the role coming from someone who did and now remains (happily?) in it. Engineering is probably the least problematic in this regard because it tends have a bit of power and sometimes isolation within a company. But take something like design, which fights all the time with product because half of the career path/duties for product design (less so brand or visual designers) is blocked by product. So when a designer tells their manager they're having problems with their PM, there is (1) nothing power-wise for the manager to do because neither they nor their bosses are in the chain of command of product and (2) they themselves never resolved this incompatibility. The best they've done is maybe launched something in spite of it. Or maybe (to the company's benefit?) not launched things because of it.

Does the functional manager just give (knowingly or unknowingly) pseudo-career-advice out of circumstance because that's the job of maintaining civility? Is this mostly a matter of everyone all around (managers and otherwise) looking the other way because employment?