As a manager up until about three years ago, I'm always intrigued by conversations about...management.
NOT AIMED AT WOLFIE OR LONK... I know both of them and I 100% believe the circumstances they describe. It happens, unfortunately. But as a general matter, I am fascinated by them too. If I had a nickel for every "my manager sucks, I could do his job, he doesn't understand what we do, yadda yada yada" conversation I've heard, I'd be booking Dream Theater into my back yard.
Look, like I said, it happens. It does. But more often than not - again MORE OFTEN THAN NOT - the people in an organization are where they need to be. If your company makes widgets, and you are the person actually making the widget, it's easy - but false - to think that the organization needs to start and end with you. Unfortunately, at least here in the States, the "widget making" is almost the least of the company's concerns, and that's just the reality of a regulated commercial environment. Actually leading people - dealing with the day-to-day of everyone's foibles - is a hard job and not everyone can be accommodated in the way that they most likely feel they should be accomodated.
I'm dealing with that now; we hired a position of leadership (25 people more or less) from a pool of internal candidates and while they don't report to me, I have a lot of interaction with them and had some say in who got the job. I opted for a very good "functional person" but excellent leader over a slightly superior functional candidate but FAR inferior leadership candidate. My boss, and several others, agreed. And the person passed over is acting exactly how I hoped he wouldn't when I though "he's not mature enough to lead this group effectively". I have no doubt he's saying "my manager sucks, I could do their job better than him and I know more..." but here's the thing: you don't. Not, at least, about the criteria on which the job was filled, and that's part of leadership. If you don't know what the important qualifications are for that job YOU DON'T BELONG THERE.