Wayne West (2/8/2016)
Thinking about it, some of my best managers were not computer experts. One was a retired Air Force officer who knew enough about computers to speak well as an interface between management, end users, and programmers. But he didn't know the minutia of database development or server management. He trusted us to do our jobs well, and we did.
To me, you hit the nail on the head when you used the word 'trust'.
I have worked for a number of companies where 'culture' was frequently talked about by management. I used to work for one where senior management's default position was to not trust the staff to do things right. Therefore everything was mired in layers of 'process'. You could take forever to produce nothing as long as you could prove you'd followed process.
Where I am now, the view is that the company hires smart people and trusts them to do a good job.
You can probably guess which company's culture gets better results. And at which company people don't cringe at the hypocrisy of management's claims to a great culture.