Yes, one big role is communicating strategic directives to the teams. Another is assuring coherence of the work. The most important role, however, is providing help and resources (not people, but actual things) to the teams when asked. Teams ask them to get something done, and they make sure it gets done. There's no point in distracting the teams by forcing them to deal with bureaucracy.
Manager, that's a term relating to formal position. It's harmless in itself, and unavoidable. Every company has managers (for compliance's sake). The problematic term is "leader", which suggests the existence of followers, and comes from the realm of command-and-control. Leadership is something entirely different than "what leaders do": It is a social dynamic.
Management, on the other hand, is an way of organizing that's closely associated with command-and-control.
Confused? That's what more than 100 years of fruitless debate and stalling have done to us.
I don't see that you're saying anything that I'm not. As for "every company has managers." Not really, at least at the team level. You're falling into the there's-only-one-true-way-to-run-a-company trap.
Managers must manage something, usually time, budget, and indirectly, the work the team does and the people who comprise the team. I the worst case, they also manage how the work is done. Big corporations have those people up the wazoo. Other companies don't need (or often want) them. They are entirely unnecessary in startup-sized companies, and in mid-sized companies, they don't need to do any management at all in the accepted sense. It's a strategic-communication and team-support role, instead.
Frankly, I don't see much point in team-level project managers. Teams are perfectly capable of managing themselves. In fact, both the Agile Manifesto and the Scrum Guide require self-management. Above the team level, you do need someone in the coordination and team-support roles. I suppose you could call that person a manager, though they are not managing anything in the standard sense.
What support would they provide to teams? Are they just synthesising information to communicate a coherent context to teams?
Yes, one big role is communicating strategic directives to the teams. Another is assuring coherence of the work. The most important role, however, is providing help and resources (not people, but actual things) to the teams when asked. Teams ask them to get something done, and they make sure it gets done. There's no point in distracting the teams by forcing them to deal with bureaucracy.
I think you are confusing things.
Manager, that's a term relating to formal position. It's harmless in itself, and unavoidable. Every company has managers (for compliance's sake). The problematic term is "leader", which suggests the existence of followers, and comes from the realm of command-and-control. Leadership is something entirely different than "what leaders do": It is a social dynamic.
Management, on the other hand, is an way of organizing that's closely associated with command-and-control.
Confused? That's what more than 100 years of fruitless debate and stalling have done to us.
It would be far better to use practical theory, instead of guessing and opinionating all the time. The theory exists. It's called Org Physics: https://betacodex.org/white-papers/paper/org-physics-explained-11
I don't see that you're saying anything that I'm not. As for "every company has managers." Not really, at least at the team level. You're falling into the there's-only-one-true-way-to-run-a-company trap.
Managers must manage something, usually time, budget, and indirectly, the work the team does and the people who comprise the team. I the worst case, they also manage how the work is done. Big corporations have those people up the wazoo. Other companies don't need (or often want) them. They are entirely unnecessary in startup-sized companies, and in mid-sized companies, they don't need to do any management at all in the accepted sense. It's a strategic-communication and team-support role, instead.
This has led me to doubt whether we need product managers kind of position at all.
Frankly, I don't see much point in team-level project managers. Teams are perfectly capable of managing themselves. In fact, both the Agile Manifesto and the Scrum Guide require self-management. Above the team level, you do need someone in the coordination and team-support roles. I suppose you could call that person a manager, though they are not managing anything in the standard sense.