A quote about lies often attributed to Mark Twain didn’t actually originate with the American author and humorist. If you consider that fact, along with the misquoted quote, there’s some irony here: “A lie can travel halfway round the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”

For a lot of years, I incorrectly attributed the quote to Twain. While it remains one of my favorite quotes, the credit must go instead to Charles Haddon Spurgeon. He was an English Particular Baptist preacher who attributed that saying to an old proverb in a sermon he delivered on April 1, 1855.

Spurgeon remains influential among Christians of various denominations, among whom he’s known as the prince of preachers. It’s interesting, too, the sermon was delivered on April Fool’s Day. But I digress.

Regardless of who came up with the words, the quote rings true — especially when it comes to the bad, incorrect, misleading and downright awful lies employees sometimes tell about their employers. And this assumes those employers are doing everything correctly.

I’ve written before about bad leaders. If you have a bad leader turning employees against your company, the math works against you.

How much does it cost? A quick Google search reveals numerous estimates.  Here’s a good rule of thumb: For every employee who’s badmouthing you, you can rest assured you’re losing 15 times his or her annual salary in revenue.  

There’s the cost of co-workers who leave your organization because they don’t want to work with a disgruntled employee. There are the customers who get fed up with dealing with this individual and turn to a competitor.

Then there’s the lost opportunity cost involved with failing to recruit talented employees who won’t even consider your business because of what they’ve heard.

What about neighbors, friends or even church members? Do you believe this disgruntled employee remains silent? Or do you suspect he or she tells everyone within earshot all the bad things about you and your company?

Now, imagine you’re paying this employee $100,000 a year. How much are you losing?

The estimates I cited took into account an employer who’d doing everything correctly. What about an organization that doesn’t pay attention to the effects of poor leadership? A typical business in the United States with 100 employees, will have around 8 percent disgruntled employees. Of those eight, two or three will be really disgruntled and try to harm you and your organization.

Does what your employees say really matter? Absolutely.