If you come to your direct report and say “I have a problem”, their immediate reaction should be “what can I personally do to help you”. If it's not, here are some reasons why:

1. You failed to motivate them.
2. You failed to make them feel understood/relevant.
3. You made them feel like they don’t matter, failed to collect/address their feedback.
4. You punished their initiative by assigning too many tasks or otherwise.
5. You made their job more stressful than it needed to be.
6. The work process structured by you was throwing away 80% of their code as you continuously failed to communicate with the client properly.
7. You made tasks “urgent” or “urgent!!!!!”, made them work overtime to do them ASAP, and then forgot about it for two whole months, so now they feel like urgent things aren’t that urgent after all.

I’m a CTO, and I tell you that their bad performance is always your fault. Always. At the very least, you didn’t make them feel safe and comfortable enough to resign.