> Dealing with performance and behavioral issues can take a huge amount of time, and it something that is never discussed with parties who are not involved.

This is true. I feel like there needs to be a better solution to it which isn't wearing your heart on your sleeve or airing dirty laundry in public.

Recently, I saw some emails from the manager two levels up form me that shouldn't have been in our CRM where he was standing up for my manager and his paycheck not going through properly. It seems like it was just an oversight because this one paycheck is run differently than others, but the director was clearly triggered because he said to payroll, "if we need to withhold anyone's paycheck, don't just do it. I need to know first because I need to know how to figure it out."

I just quietly deleted the email and made sure similar ones wouldn't get logged. But I was also impressed at how quickly this director just stood up for someone under him. And if not for this chance stumble upon I never would have known of this side of his work.

Maybe the recognition of managers is something that has to be done publically by those above them to get their teams to hear it?