Great manager in a bad system, or average manager in a good one?

Been chewing on this one and curious what people here think.

You get a choice. Either a really strong manager, but the setup around them is a mess (priorities all over the place, every decision needs three approvals, they’re blamed for stuff they can’t control). Or a pretty average manager, but the structure is solid: clear priorities, they can actually make decisions, leadership has their back.

I keep landing on the second one. In my experience the great manager in the messy setup can hold it together for a while, but they usually burn out or leave, or they slowly start looking average because they’re spending all their energy fighting the system. The average one in a good setup tends to get better over time.

That said, I can see the case for the first option, especially at a small company where one good person can actually fix things.

Which would you pick? And has anyone here been the “great manager stuck in a bad system”? Curious how that played out.