There usually is an unhealthy amount of "their small minds can't comprehend the brilliance of my plan" involved certainly at the top of the pyramid. It's the status that makes them feel better than the rest.

They're also being incentivized to ignore small fires. Their boss will berate then for putting people on the small stuff (little fires) for no immediate gains and endangering the Holy Deadline. Of course the normal reaction is to ignore issues until it becomes a big problem on short term and then solve it.

There are many idiotic inefficiencies with the incentives in corporations but almost everything is run this way so it mostly evens out.