As a long-time manager in a variety of environments, I can tell you with 100% certainty that the answer is: maybe, sometimes.

Effectively managing human beings is a game of very few clear lines.

Admitting that a new rule is stupid but needs to be done works sometimes, with some people, often depending very much on how you say it and what your relationship is like. You can't use that line all the time, with every rule you disagree with (or every rule they disagree with) because it causes active mistrust of the organization, which breeds discontent and is bad for morale. But, similarly, you can't ardently defend every decision made by higher-ups because that causes them to mistrust you and that also breeds discontent and is bad for morale.

Sometimes you have to say "Do it because I say so" and sometimes you have have to say "This is why we're doing this." And often which one you choose differs from day to day, rule to rule, employee to employee, conversation to conversation.

Machiavelli said "There is no other way to guard yourself against flattery than by making [people] understand that telling you the truth will not offend you, but when all [people] may tell you the truth, you lose their respect."

I remember reading that when I was a teenager, long before I had ever been in charge of anyone, and I spent a lot of time thinking about it. And it made me realize that there's no one single path, no simple rules, no one-size-fits-all way to go about thing where other humans are concerned.

People joke about managers who can't do the jobs of the people the manage, about "failing upwards" and the like, but managing people is really its own skillset, completely separate from whatever skillsets you're managing. It's challenging but I also find it very rewarding.