In many cases a non-technical manager will report to a chain of other managers who are also non-technical. It should not be surprising that the criteria on which they are judged do not include technical decision making.
Instead, important metrics may include size of team, number of hires per year, revenue of business unit, number of customer-reported defects, etc. I worked at a place where bugs reported internally were not eligible for the highest levels of severity, because after all no customer had noticed (yet). So mistakes reported by customers counted against managers, but ones caught by developers did not, regardless of how much effort was required to fix them.
> It should not be surprising that the criteria on which they are judged do not include technical decision making.
Absolutely. Even individual technical contributors are judged on vague criteria. I'd argue that 'being liked by your manager' is more important than being technically excellent.
> So mistakes reported by customers counted against managers, but ones caught by developers did not, regardless of how much effort was required to fix them.
Exactly. Also, I've never seen technical debt (myopic technical decision-making) affect evaluation of management.
Instead, important metrics may include size of team, number of hires per year, revenue of business unit, number of customer-reported defects, etc. I worked at a place where bugs reported internally were not eligible for the highest levels of severity, because after all no customer had noticed (yet). So mistakes reported by customers counted against managers, but ones caught by developers did not, regardless of how much effort was required to fix them.