Seize Your Leadership Day: Bosses Day Late
by Miki Saxon
Yesterday was Bosses Day and in honor of that I’m going to share some information on bosses—BIG bosses.
These days’ people are incensed with executive pay packages on and off Wall Street.
For years there has been much talk about pay for performance, but I haven’t seen any strong connection—have you?
And certainly not this year.
But the recession doesn’t seem to have slowed down CEO compensation at all and I’m not even referring to Wall Street.
You’ve probably never even heard of the 5 most highly compensated CEOs, unless you are unfortunate enough to own the stock or work or been laid off from the companies. The 5 are Eugene Isenberg, chief of Nabors Industries, Michael Jeffries of Abercrombie & Fitch, Brian Roberts of Comcast, John Faraci of International Paper and James Stewart of BJ Services. Ugh.
By now you all know that those poor mistreated boys and girls at what used to be Merrill Lynch are getting their bonuses, perhaps if they get over their embarrassment they will start spending and give the economy a real boost.
And then there’s Ken Lewis, the beloved CEO of B of A—the bank we love to hate.
You probably read that Kenny is “stepping down” and has agreed (under duress) to forego his 2009 salary and bonus and repay a whole million dollars. In case you were actually impressed with this, please note that he will walk away with a $53 million pension plan.
That’s on top of everything he’s made (I refuse to say earned) previously.
The NY Times had an interesting article that explains that Lewis isn’t incompetent, he just can’t lead. But from where I sit by the time anyone makes it to the corner office of a corporation the size of Bank of America should be able to do it all.
A few months ago CEO magazine published Why Smart Chief Executives Make Dumb Decisions; perhaps they should a copy to all the CEOs mentioned in the articles to which I’ve linked.
It probably wouldn’t help, those guys are so smart they don’t need any outside input that doesn’t agree what they think—just ask them.
In closing today, be sure to read Phil Gerbyshak’s description of the boss anyone would kill to have at Slacker Manager.
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Image credit: nono farahshila on flickr and HikingArtist.com on flickr
