Any workable management approach relies on not managing down further than your direct reports, and believing what they say. Otherwise you've eliminated that layer of middle management, and have to do their work.

It might happen that this is the correct approach, and how to slice things up is often an eternal argument both on an organizational level and technical level.

Unfortunately that gives a lot of power to the middlemen, whoch they might use against you, but that's how the cookie crumbles.

That's why sometimes new management comes in and cleans house at the direct report level so they have people they know they can trust.