Manager's self-perceptions as "experts-in-all-fields"

When it comes to blame somebody for something it seems that there are plenty of experts around. Especially, in management I am increasingly noticing that obviously a lot of people in a management position turns out to be an "expert-in-all-fields".

In various meetings with people from lower, middle or upper management in my company and also from others it appeared that real technical issues were discussed. And that although I am sure nobody of the meeting participants was even a near-expert on the discussed topics. I admit that such discussions would not be very problematic. But also decisions were made concerning implementation details. Of course, these decisions then can only be far from optimal and result in frustrating the people who are the real experts and should at least have been asked for their opinions.

A manager of a technical unit is not able to have detailed knowledge of the bits and bytes to the same extent as his subordinates. I am wondering why many IT managers are so inclined of thinking that they are subject matter experts. It might be that they would like to not be the manager but the expert? In that case their subordinates and maybe even the whole company can claim bad luck.

Everybody has to become effective and efficient in his own duties ("a man has to do what one has to do" ;-). So managers of technical units should concentrate on leading their employees to success rather than trying to stay a technical expert themselves. And if leaders don't want to lead people but want to be a technical expert they should rethink their positions.