Obviously, you don't really play any tangible roles in these games (or XCOM, for that matter) so they are not RPGs.
Wrong, your manager is quite literally your character, with his own stats, attitudes, unique responses etc etc.
Attitudes and "unique responses" are irrelevant to gameplay, that's just flavor text.
However, if there are really stats and you can actually influence these (as some sort of character building/advancement) and they do have a tangible influence on the game and you actually can give commands to that manager entity...
Then yes, such a game would at least partly be an RPG.
Even though it'd probably be a minor part, as I assume the vast majority of gameplay still revolves around typical manager gameplay and is more business sim than anything else.
But hey, I'll never go against touching more things up with RPG gameplay. Worked for Tower Defense and FPS games, too.