People with your line of thinking are usually IC's who discount how difficult leadership is. How do you affect change without having to do everything yourself? That's a valuable skill.
Most people come in to do defined jobs. Most initiatives that are innovative or risky come from below the CEO without CEO's influence. CEO's have little input on day-to-day operations of big companies. Add to it that many companies minimizing both management and CEO pay are among highest performers. Several models include Publix, Costco, Whole Foods, and I recently found Semler.
Semler is a good example showing the opposite model works in difficult, high-innovation sectors in the worst economy possible with least management possible. Just has to be set up right. On other end, Toyota Production System, Publix, and Whole Foods strategies draw most innovation out of people lower in hierarchy with excellent results. Heavily-managed, hierarchical companies are among the least innovative normally just acquiring companies for it.
So, CEO's should be payed way, way less than they are right now with most senior managers just eliminated in favor of interacting, small teams or divisions. Much of the administrative stuff could similarly be outsourced to lean organizations focusing on that stuff.
"Do this or you're fired" will typically get those below you to produce the change you desire. Not sure how you can put that much value on a skill inherit to a hierarchical organization.
If the organization was flat, then I would concede your point that affecting change without any seniority would be difficult and worth extra compensation. A true leader would need to be persuasive, knowledgeable and visionary.
What you describe as "leadership" is people doing their job.
"Do this or you're fired" will typically get those below you to produce the change you desire.
LOL. If this were true it would be so much easier. But talented employees, who can easily get another job across the street, are more likely to laugh at you then do what you want if you talk to them like that.
(We've gotten a bit off topic this deep in the thread. At this point we're really just talking about general management skills which really isn't a big thing for a CEO of any reasonably sized company. That being said....)
Robert: Sorry I can't work late this week. It's my kid's birthday tomorrow.
Back in the real world it's not unemployment that you're gonna worry about. It's how much severance you're going to pay him. Somewhere between 1 and 3 months. Which he'll use to take a nice vacation and then easily go get another job whenever he's ready.
And you'll be down a talented employee that's hard to replace.
Good leaders can effect change without resorting to the "do this or you're fired" line. If your manager kept using that line on you, I suspect you'd go find a place that didn't work that way.
