The real culprit is a combination of too many levels of hierarchy and performance reviews IMO. Especially when multiple levels along a management chain disagree on what a report must work on.

This is the kind of shit I have to fight every day. I have to align my manager, skip, VP. If I don't align them, one of them will be necessarily pissed no matter what I do, and the pissed one will fire orders down to hate on me, overriding the opinions of anyone on the way down.