Apparently the Romans were good at choosing middle management

Every time you encounter a Roman centurion in Scripture, you find a man of integrity - a respectable, intelligent, virtuous man. The Romans were not very good at selecting governors, but apparently they had some means of choosing their centurions that weeded out the weak and incompetent. We meet centurions in Matthew 8 and Luke 7, Mark 15, Acts 10, Acts 22, and Acts 24, and all of them are upright men of decency and honor.

- Excerpted from John Macarthur's The Book on Leadership, p. 8