Good managers are to protect company interests but not at the expense of the workers. Managers should be making employee work lives easier and better. Take care of your employees and everything else takes care of itself. Problem comes in when managers who don’t know how to manage people get involved. You can manage process well and still suck at the human (more important) side of things.

I've heard it said that this is why, sometimes, a lot of people are given the title "manager' when they're not really in any sort of managerial positions. It prevents them from entering unions as easily.

Take that with a grain of salt though.