[pastamania]

What the CEO says company wide and what the CEO says to middle management and gets them to do are often two very, very different things.

If there's a difficult, unpopular decision to be made, C-suite types often can't just come out and talk about it openly because the very act of doing that will maximise the amount of ill will and damage that decision will cause throughout the business unnecessarily. So the role of middle management is to be the 'bad cop' and pass that message on in a limited way to the affected people, who then blame them for it.

Just because the CEO isn't the one saying it, it doesn't mean it's not coming from the CEO. Part of being a middle manager, maybe even the biggest part, is being the messenger whose paid to get shot.