> There's a world of difference between managing a dozen or so individual contributors vs managing senior managers / directors.
I agree, but in my opinion, your point about needing to know how things work still holds. It's less relevant as you move up to managing managers and larger orgs, but it never goes to zero if you're going to be successful.
I think it holds true throughout if you scope it to knowledge about your reports’ domain. If you’re managing managers you should have a good handle on what a manager does and different ways to do it.