There is a balance between empowerment and the higher-ups taking responsibility. I've been in an organization where-in the higher-ups just abdicated all responsibility and avoided making any technical decision (maybe for fear of making a wrong decision) and so the small teams had to make every decision which led to chaos and lack of direction.
Sometimes, it is the job of the architect or CTO to make those big decisions; their job is not to code, their job is to weigh the possible options and make a decision to give direction to the team.
