When bad things happen, the execs don't know it happened because they tell other people to go off and do stuff. When good things happen, execs take all the credit because the told people to go off and do stuff.
When my wife was in business school, the teacher of her management class used this idea as an unironic definition of management. They had to memorize the definition, which was essentially "taking credit for the work of other people." Not as a joke.
