In these environments, decisions aren’t solely the purview of executives. As a staff engineer or a line manager, you’ll be celebrated if you succeed, lampooned if you fail, and you’ll have to own the risk directly rather than shifting the risk to senior leadership by getting their approval. In this mode of operation, senior leadership doesn’t provide direction on navigating demands, rather they provide demands to be satisfied (sometimes described as “context” because that’s a nicer sounding word than “demands”), and outsource solving the constraints to the team.
If you want to make choices, expect that you’re going to be accountable for outcomes.
Autonomy comes with risk, comes with reward.