This is a constant source of miscommunication between the social and political factions inside and outside of work vs. the hard-core engineer technocrats. The people-people think that we make decisions and take actions, or have opinions because we are playing the game - and we're not playing it right! Or worse are playing with the wrong team. Backing the wrong horse, refusing to "play along", etc. Troublemakers!
But see it's just that we're not playing a game. We actually did the research and just honestly think that thing X is not the best thing (even though it's the bosses bosses pet project). We're independently and internally motivated, and don't give a jot what others think (so we think).
Conversely we often think the lovely people-people are idiots because they pick the wrong solutions, don't back doing it "the right way", etc. Because we sometimes don't understand that they are playing a game. This means we underestimate them and their motives, as well as misunderstand the invisible rules and potential consequences.
The best engineering cultures are those that keep and encourage those like-minded, non-game-playing folks together and happy and far, far away from those politics and games. They need savy honest management to insulate them from that stuff and to translate between the cultures. And to weed out fakers who are trying to play games amongst those naive to it.