I understand the point you're making: CEOs can't be easily shown to be 10x at their jobs the same way that athletes can be.
But then you're expecting all CEO's to be 10x and are making a hypothesis that many are probably not. Maybe.
Look at it from the point of the Board. They don't care about the details. They just want to appoint people who will handle it. They don't have the time to supervise every company they're the board members of (possibly a problem of corporate governance to be sure).
So CEO's tend to be the folks who:
1. Get things done and
2. Accept responsibility
As long as they execute on these goals, the Board doesn't care. In fact, they will pay the CEO more if they take such good care of the company that they don't need to be involved at all.
If it's just a question of doing things and taking the fall if it goes wrong, why pay for that?
There are armies of middle managers that could do that at any firm. By the time you're middle management, you know what the firm does. Just pick one of them, pay them a little bit more, and pick another one if it goes wrong.
> There are armies of middle managers that could do that at any firm. By the time you're middle management, you know what the firm does. Just pick one of them, pay them a little bit more, and pick another one if it goes wrong.
If only that were the case. Most middle managers are folks who have reached their zenith; they are good enough for their roles but not good enough for the next level. Usually its due to some variation of ego/communication issues.
Despite this though, I kinda agree with you that this should be tried more often. From personal observation, it appears that many companies don't have the flexibility of experimenting with this approach.
But then you're expecting all CEO's to be 10x and are making a hypothesis that many are probably not. Maybe.
Look at it from the point of the Board. They don't care about the details. They just want to appoint people who will handle it. They don't have the time to supervise every company they're the board members of (possibly a problem of corporate governance to be sure).
So CEO's tend to be the folks who: 1. Get things done and 2. Accept responsibility
As long as they execute on these goals, the Board doesn't care. In fact, they will pay the CEO more if they take such good care of the company that they don't need to be involved at all.