“The person who makes the biggest difference in your day-to-day work life isn't the CEO, who probably isn't aware of your existence. It's your immediate boss, who knows to go easy on you right now because your marriage is falling apart, who tailors their feedback to you in a way that makes you open to change, and who reshapes assignments from higher-ups so they match your strengths and ambitions.”
Literally never in my life have had a manager who did any of this. The only thing true about the sentiment is that middle managers have always been the ones to make the biggest difference in just how miserable the job is for me. On a scale of bad to miserable.