I see an item in our paper today about the eye-watering salary levels of CEOs. This is mainly about US CEOs but I know the issue also exists in other countries, and on a lesser scale, even here in New Zealand.
It is easy to feel outraged about multi-million dollar executive pay packages, or huge bonuses voted by shareholders, especially when ordinary workers are struggling to get by, and companies don't seem to be doing all that well anyway, but that is not the issue I want to focus on here. Instead, I would like to ask a serious question of just what it is, exactly, that CEOs do? Whether they are paid one million or a hundred million, what is it that thay are paid for? Are they expected to have some kind of special insight, or creative vision? What is it that they do, that others can't? What does it take to run a company? What makes a CEO more special than any other executive officer? What qualifies someone to be a CEO? Can anyone with a degree of intelligence and experience do a reasonable job of being a CEO or does it require some special quality? Just what is it that these people do?
