We call them leaders?

Headline in the business section of Florida Today (part of the USA Today group) on 5/7/11:  "Couldn't be better for CEOs:  Leaders in top companies made more in 2010 than in booming 2007"

Sometimes I think I'm in the Twilight Zone.  How can the general public read about the HUGE disparity between CEO wages and the rest of the country and not go a little crazy?  It can't be that the news doesn't get out because the media is controlled by those same rich and powerful, since I easily stumbled on it in a two page business section of a rag of a newspaper that doesn't even use spell check.  Then this morning I hear an interview with John Boehner declaring that they will NEVER raise taxes on the wealthy because they creates jobs.  So how do I reconcile huge unemployment numbers and companies still cutting back, when it would seem that some of the $50-80,000,000 salaries could be used to create jobs?

How much is enough?  If I complain about the disparity in the distribution of wealth in this country I am called a socialist.  But somewhere along the line I think people confuse democracy and capitalism.  I know that greed of these proportions is not about the money, because they can't spend it all.  I think it's about "The American Dream" that we all have the freedom to do anything we want, and that includes having more money than we can spend.  So the average workers with average salaries don't get up in arms when they hear about these disparities.  Instead they are proud of the example, because it means "one day I could be that person."  Of course they have as much chance of that as becoming professional athletes (another fantasy that we gladly pay for).  Somewhere along the way I think we lost our way.  And if these CEO's are an example of leadership I think we need to reconsider what leadership is about.

For a jolting perspective of another way to run a company read Ricardo Semler's The Seven-Day Weekend.  The guy took his company, Semco, from annual revenues of $4M to $212M in 20 years by giving up control and letting the employees make decisions and take responsibility for their well-being and the well-being of the company.  What if followers create leaders, and not the other way around?  Check out Semco's common sense approach to business, and having a life.  As I was reading about the Semco story I kept scratching my head thinking this is crazy.  You can't have so few controls!  But when I read about our "leaders" making record amounts of money in one of the worst financial times in global history I scratch my head again.