Synthetic rather than natural authority naturally has perverse incentives. Those getting things done benefit most from policy changes (high responsibility) but have no authority to effect said changes other than by simply breaking the rules.

As such the only reason most firms actually work at all is due to pervasive "Fuhren unter der hand", which eventually gets caught and results in the weeding out of your most productive. If managers ever read "Command Culture" they'd understand what a brigade of clowns they really are.