There's not enough hours in the day for everyone to do everything.

> There is a whole modern line of thinking that leaders should be providing the context and skills to give high performing teams MORE agency over their work streams.

Yes, this is great for agency over implementation, because leaders do not have context to decide and dictate the What/How of implementing every single change or solution to a problem. And the implementers need to know the context to ensure they make decisions consistent with that context.

But "leaders providing the context" is very different from "everyone researching the context on their own." So where are leaders getting this context from? A not-very-differentiated pile of 1000 generalist engineers-who-also-talk-to-customers-frequently-and-manage-their-own-work-streams? Or do they build a team with specialists to avoid needing the majority of people to constantly context-switch in a quest to be all of context-gatherers, work-prioritizers, market-researchers, and implementation-builders?

There are many leaders that use information as a tool that serves their own needs.

They may have the context, but they are either too focused on their own job to share it, or actively manage dissemination so they can manipulate the organization.

In my experience, this is the typical operating mode, though I do not think it is sinister or malicious - just natural.

Poor leaders gonna lead poorly.