The first is CEO pay rates. Another is the highest paid public employees (which tend to be coaches at state schools). This is evidence that the market highly values managers.
Another is systemic failures within enterprises. When Boeing had a few very public plane crashes, a certain narrative suggested that the transition from highly capable engineer managers to financial focus managers contributed to the problem. A similar narrative has been used to explain the decline of Intel.
Consider the return of Steve Jobs to Apple. Or the turn around at Microsoft with Nadella.
All of these are complex cases that don't submit to an easy analysis. Success and failure are definitely multi-factor and rarely can be traced to a single definitive cause.
Perhaps another way to look at it would be: what percentage of the success of highly complex organizations can be attributed to management? To what degree can poor management decisions contribute to the failure of an otherwise capable organization?
How much you choose to weight those factors is entirely up to you.
edit: I was also thinking about the way we think about the advantage of exceptional generals/admirals in military analysis. Or the effect a president can have on the direction of a country.