They exist. I've had a few. Protecting devs from meetings, being flexible, not getting their own ego into things, generally trust their developers to figure out how to code things (or at least the architects), try to keep you from working long hours (or if there are long hours, they're probably working them with you), pretty transparent about the crap that's going on above their heads (although that can be because that's all they can offer and aren't allowed to give you what you really want by the higher ups).
Invariably though, these guys were in the trenches at one point. Good developers or designers that eventually rose up into management. They understand how it's better if everyone works together instead of get too deep in politics (they aren't perfect about that, though, I've seen them have favorites) and try to enable their team as much as possible.
The types of things you're talking about like manipulation et al., I've only seen from career managers, who never really had a proper job making things. And those definitely exist, and are more plentiful than the good managers, but the good ones aren't mythical creatures. You're just getting unlucky in finding them, I guess.
