>I'll never understand how terrible decision makers rise to the highest ranks of leadership.

It is because they are good at networking and flattering people in order to manipulate them. Then once one person like this gets into management, then they tell two friends, and they tell two friends, and so on, and so on, and so on.

The scary thing is, the number of people who have no leadership skills being in a position that requires it.

In the end their only rally cry is to "add value" because that's all they rely on. The constant growth technique. Meanwhile you want to keep adding and adding, yet what you added doesn't work properly. And instead of fixing the problem you just add more "value" as a workaround.

Honestly the sales reps for software companies must be great at their jobs.