Some bosses, Saudi and Expat, are much worse than others. I learned how much top management values a team by seeing what kind of leader they assign to lead it. There are truly toxic bosses at Aramco that have been around for a long time. Everybody seemed well aware of the destruction they brought to the teams they lead. I heard that these managers have connections in the government, so Aramco has to employ them. However, they didn't need to be put in charge of anything important. Yet, they were put in charge of what most Western companies would consider important areas. Why?
I used to think the people at the top of Aramco were insane, but then I realized the role that toxic managers play. They give the top management plausible deniability when things go wrong and they suppress inconvenient truths by driving away competent people who point them out. I consider a classic example of this to be the fire at Radium where Aramco admitted to 11 deaths. The WSJ reported that company inspectors found major life-safety problems and that the building shouldn't be occupied. That report was done by a competent inspector, and the fact that it was not followed up on made Aramco's management look bad. Do you really think that management wants another report like that lying around for the press the next time a major disaster happens?
The Expats that I saw surviving in teams with toxic leaders did so by focusing on small details that did not matter. They would ignore what were obviously major problems and point out only minor issues. To take the Radium example further, if the Expat saw water from the air conditioning unit was dripping on the electrical substation in the garage creating a fire risk, his report would recommend painting the hand rails in the stairway yellow for greater visibility.