Any leaders among CEOs?

I came across this funny headline on Bloomberg, “Why Would Anyone Want to Be a CEO These Days?”.

Yes, why would they? When s–t hits the fan, nobody wants to be responsible. C-suits do not suffer financial consequences for their bad decisions, nobody is questioning their competence if they bring short-term results (read as pumped up stocks), but never mind if they ki-l the company in the long run for as long as the higher ups have squeezed all the money out. So, when there is a need for actual leadership, when the situation is challenging, they run for their lives.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-01-14/ceos-in-2024-announce-layoffs-apologize-for-plane-doors-and-more

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“Why Would Anyone Want to Be a CEO These Days?” Three answers: money, money, money.

They can do no wrong. And if they get shuffled off, they leave with a golden parachute. I could work for 4 months at Wirth’s salary and never lift a finger the rest of my life. You’re telling me he adds 300x value of the average employee?

"Why Would Anyone Want to Be a CEO These Days"...maybe the multiple million dollar compensation? Compensation in the USA is way out of wack, with the top 1% of the corporate tree often making more than the bottom %50 combined, and much of that imbalance associated with CEO compensation. Anyone who builds a great company from the ground up deserves all the compensation they get, but this extreme compensation for those that did little more than stand in line back-stabbing their peers to move faster up the ranks in an established company is ridiculous.

To answer your question, here's a simple litmus test: C-suite true visionaries started their companies from nothing and made them massive. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page come to mind most recently. Hewlett and Packard, Edwin Land, George Eastman also. The culture these visionaries created stoked the growth of their companies. True leaders took over from the visionaries and continued to grow the company and inspired their employees, albeit with less-dramatic impact as their companies plateaued (Steve Ballmer, Tim Cook). It seems the bigger the company and the further removed from their origins, the less influential the CEO is, whether it's about profits or employee dedication. Of course, at the other end of the spectrum are the C-suiter's who "managed" the downfall of their companies, either through failure, missed opportunities or being bought out. One can look at Kodak, IBM, US Steel, maybe Microsoft as well, as examples. Lots of examples in the oil patch. Given this mini-thesis, you can ask yourself where Chevron C-suiters should be positioned.

LOL. BP's ex CEO referenced as having made one of the d-mbest statements ever uttered by a C-suite.

Thread regarding Chevron Corp. layoffs

Any leaders among CEOs?

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