Who's the Boss? The Effect of Strong Leadership on Employee Turnover

Despite the prevalence of mentor relationships in the workplace, little is known about their impact on labor market outcomes, including job retention. Using plausibly exogenous assignment of proteges to mentors in the U.S. Army, we find positive retention effects for proteges assigned to high-performing immediate and senior supervisors. These positive effects are strongest for those with high SAT scores. We find virtually no evidence of type-matched mentoring effects on retention, except when mentors are also high-performing. For proteges serving under high-performing mentors, matching on high SAT score and home division positively impacts protege retention.Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.