> When you make a decision as a manager or a director, the impact of that decision has a multiplicative force.

The above resonates as an exercise in tautology to me. If the job of a manager is defined as a position in which a person's decisions will have a multiplicative force... well... then of course their decisions will have a multiplicative force! Though I'm not sure the above is even remotely true for the vast majority of management-type positions, save those at the highest-level. And even if it is... then it of course a fact that the value derived from an individual in such a position is therefore not related to the "multiplicative force", rather, the decisions themselves.

I'd wager most managers come from two camps (the first two below):

1. Those that are ex individual contributors who have accumulated enough seniority and experience to best-understand not "what to build", but rather, "how to build it best". And are therefore given the authority, responsibility, and pay-check to do so.

2. And those who are not really managers at all, and whose job would be more accurately named "coordinators". This seems to be the role you are hitting on at end. You know, the guy who asks the engineers "how can I unblock you today?" and whose explicit role is to have the authority to act on the answer. Notably, not synthesizing the answer in the first place.

3. The third camp is of course the ones to which you seem to be alluding in your comment. The high-level, c-suite, "director of strategy"-type roles. And you are exactly right about them. Clearly the person deciding which widget needs to be built is in a position of tremendous responsibility when the value they can add (and remove) is extremely consequential (assuming the resources required to do so are equally consequential). There aren't many roles like this in a company.

It's the second group of "managers", I think, that the OP is confused about. They don't actually make that many decisions, and the ones that they do make are rarely different from the one their most competent reports wouldn't also make. Sure these "managers" sit in meetings and talk about the larger context of the code, the product vision, etc., but only insofar as that its useful to have someone who can distill and relay this information back to the engineers building the product. Because as an engineer it is, of course, nearly impossible to build a truly great product if you don't understand its larger context. It is this group of managers where the tautology is glaring. It is their job to carry-out the work necessary to multiply force. The work isn't all that creative, doesn't require much judgment, and rarely requires much expertise. The value isn't in multiplying force, it's in just showing up...

To clarify, I'm not suggesting managers don't have value, and certainly don't believe there doesn't exist a spectrum between those in the position. Some people multiply force more than others. They know to ask "how can I unblock you today?". They know that Jim doesn't like to be bothered before 11AM. That Susan is more productive if she has a tight feedback loop. Or that Ron isn't as good as Pam at test coverage. They know how to find and exploit people strengths while also minimizing their weaknesses. This is valuable.

Even so I'd wager most of the time a manager's pay is calibrated such that they make more than those whom they manage regardless of the value these people (the people being managed) contribute and without any sort of rigorous appraisal of how much value they bring or how much force they multiply. How could you? The skills illustrated above can't easily be captured in a pay band...