So the job of a manager is just ensure that CEO's orders, no matter how stupid they may be are executed without any shadow of doubt, and no questions asked? By highly intelligent employees?
That's some lame management and some lame company to be in.
It's also every employee's job to honestly and openly argue with anything that he finds stupid or unnecessary. If he doesn't speak up, or if he loses that argument, then yes, he is supposed to commit to the decision that's been made and execute it to the best of his ability.
Conversely, it's every senior employee's job to listen to these arguments in good faith and countermand his own bad decisions once they've been pointed out as such.
What isn't anyone's job, ever, is to receive instructions from above and silently ignore them. Especially in this particular example, a manager who hasn't had a 1:1 with any of his reports in half a year probably isn't some brave conscientious objector trying to hide from the oppression of the CEO, he's more likely a shitty manager and the people working for him would probably be glad to see him summarily fired in the first place.
