Mindboggling how everyone who works with those “manages up” types knows exactly what’s going on, yet the bosses are clueless and refuse to believe anything negative about them.
Some of them know, and protect the person doing the dirty work for them. I know of one instance where a director level individual threatened the head of HR when called down due to bad behavior. The CEO stepped in, and requested any HR issues with this person be referred to him. No disciplinary action was taken.