Discussion on answer by Engineer Dollery: Star developer didn’t get a promotion because he isn’t a people person, so he has scaled back his contributions. How can I motivate him?

@O.F. I think you've misread my intent, and I suspect from your tone that this was deliberate. I was careful in my choice of the word 'may' in that sentence. You're assigning it a much stronger interpretation than was intended. I didn't mean that managers are not needed, I said that it's possible to proceed without them and still get good software, but that the opposite isn't true. And, I carefully positioned my comments to show that the engineer had produced value but that the manager had failed to perform. Based on your comments I can only assume that you are a troll.

This engineer, who is at least three levels below the OP's position, has repeatedly avoided / turned down pretty much anything that would involve other human interaction or management, then acted like a spoiled child (bordering on sabotage) when he didn't get a management position, and the OP is the problem?

How is this an answer ? OP is asking how he can fix the situation and you spend 6 paragraphs bragging and saying you'd fire OP and then finally proceed to tell him he has to "fix this situation". No kidding ?

@StumpedMoneyHacker - you seem completely incompetent. Your have failed at your most basic and most important job. Good engineers are 10x better than average ones (there is plenty of scientific evidence to back this up, btw). You should have been doing everything in your power to understand this guy and helping him achieve his goals because he is the asset here. You didn't. You burried your head in the sand until it was too late. You saw his extra efforts and took them for granted. You assumed he was doing it because he was a 'geek'. You and I would not get along.

This was linked in one of the other answers and it makes a very good point. youtube.com/watch?v=Y4dyADuYfbg Untrustworthy, high performance individuals are not an asset to the company. Other people can write software too. No one - not even this guy - is irreplaceable. "Rockstar" or otherwise. The manager's job is not to keep him happy. The manager's job is to ensure that the work is getting done. And it's currently not being done because this employee is holding the company to ransom, a behaviour that should not be rewarded in any capacity at all.

@Stacey The manager's job is to keep EVERY single of his employees happy and productive. That's literally the job description. Keep the empoyees happy is one of the most important things to keep the employees productive. The OP has failed at that unfortunately. He also has failed at organising his team to not be so dependant on a single developer. Those are all managerial failures.