Autopilot CEO
Nytimes recently had an article about CEO salaries and how they remain (are trending up) very very high. If COVID has shown anything it is that essential employees who actually run this country (and world in general) are true heroes and should get even higher pay. But given the society we live in I doubt if that will ever happen in our lifetime.
As I continued to think about the topic of CEO pays and CEOs in general I think most CEOs are what I call “Autopilot CEOs”. Company can run just as smooth in their absence.
Here are some of the qualities of a Autopilot CEO
Never takes risks or risky decisions. Too focused on not making mistakes or missteps that they would rather not take any risks at all.
Without risks and innovation there is a lot of me-too products that come under their leadership. Those products are never usually successful because company never believed in those products.
Hire “Senior leaders” from outside instead of promoting from within.
Milking existing cash cows. If there is a cash generating division in the company it is exploited so much that customers
Pretend to be cool. If there is a cultural movement going on then embrace it to look cool. They never took a stand before movement became popular
Obviously there are some CEOs who deserve every dollar they are getting paid (and some more). But they are extremely rare. It might sound unfair to criticize Autopilot CEOs because not every CEO can create multi trillion products under their leadership. But that should also mean that Autopilot CEOs should not get paid the salaries they are getting paid. Corporate boards have the job of coming up with fair compensation for their CEOs but it is very rare to see a board that did their job of coming up with a fair compensation for the CEO.