Everyone is treated with respect. I personally would've never "talk down" to an employee like this Ben guy did. And frankly, we expect our employees to act them same (and most do - the ones who don't don't last long here).
So if your managers are totally failing the employees they are managing... you cannot seriously correct them?
But presumably you expect the employees to take serious correction. So this really reduces to an unspoken code that management shouldn't be treated this way.
You can correct somebody respectfully. I think Ben could have had exactly the same outcome without coming across as a jerk.
I'm not judging Ben either way here; sometimes a situation requires being a jerk. But the more managing I do, the more I believe that if a manager has to be a jerk it's because they've messed something up elsewhere.
Everyone is treated with respect. I personally would've never "talk down" to an employee like this Ben guy did. And frankly, we expect our employees to act them same (and most do - the ones who don't don't last long here).