At his death, a debate arose about what exactly Steve Jobs had done for Apple Inc., the company he co-founded and led as CEO for many years. Some even wondered whether he had contributed much of anything, and therefore might be getting too much credit for Apple’s extraordinary success. After all, he hadn’t produced the drawings for the iPhone or any Apple product. He hadn’t engineered or assembled them. Or raised the funds to pay his employees or suppliers. Or fulfilled the orders that came racing in.
But there is a sense in which his role — and that of any CEO or manager who oversees any organization — can be simply understood: theirs is the guiding judgment of the operation, the one that decides everything about what that organization does and how it does it.
With respect to the role of CEO especially, its decisions are so consequential, few people can succeed at or even want it, despite its associated prestige and pay. In fact, the pay must be sufficient to attract those few who have the requisite knowledge, courage, and sense of responsibility.
These observations are hardly new, but sometimes need reiterating. Indeed, one old but eloquent comment on the subject comes from Pliny the Elder (d. 77 AD), who in his Natural History [18.8], offered this: “that it is the eye of the master that does more towards fertilizing a field than anything else.”
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