Marcus Buckingham, from First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently:
Our research yielded many discovers, but the most powerful was this: Talented employees need great managers.
The talented employee may join a company because of its charismatic leaders, its generous benefits, and its world-class training programs, but how long that employee stays and how productive he is while he is there is determined by his relationship with his immediate supervisor.
When talented employees work for mediocre managers, they either leave or stagnate. Now the latter might include high levels of productivity outside the organization (new initiatives kindled “after hours,” moonlighting opportunities, etc.), but the organization with the mediocre manager is still, ultimately, the loser on such occasions.
HT: Matt Perman