If you're a former Googler, then you know that the role description for L6 indicates that an L6 is indeed supposed to exert a lot of leadership and influence, even if not a manager.
Yes, exactly. This is the case in a lot of other large companies. It basically enables management to fuck it up royally and repeatedly while the more senior engineers, which ambiguously defined technical leadership roles added to their IC responsibilities clean it up and keep the lights on.