If the manager himself is a founder, former programmer, or otherwise both intimately familiar with and committed to the process that actually produces the outcome, he may understand the importance of the work and really be working to ensure his team has what it needs so they can do a good job for the company. He's still working for the company, but he appreciates and understands engineering, and since you're working together for common goals from a common understanding, your interests are aligned.
You can almost always expect people to consider their field of expertise the nexus of the company's lifeblood, the critical component that everything will die without. Everything else will be considered tertiary. In the case of most managers, their expertise is schmoozing, and that's going to be their primary focus. To the extent that good engineering jeopardizes schmoozing, you can and should expect the manager to strongly prefer schmoozes.