> What does a CEO(and other managers) do really?
The answer is to be responsible to the business. The buck stops at the CEO. Therefore, their responsibilities are technically everything in the entire company. And I think many people who have only worked for other people underestimate how valuable that responsibility is.
Doesn't this usually just mean saying "I take full responsibility" and then firing a bunch of unrelated people?
Many people observe reality, where the workers end up being the ones held accountable for the CEO's decisions, not the CEO.
Many people observe a limited subset of reality. It's highly visible when a company hits a crisis and people lose their jobs; it's much more common, but much less visible, for a CEO to get an after-hours call about a brewing problem which they must immediately work to smooth over.
Workers are not legally or financially accountable for any of that. That is the whole point of a "job". I think you are confused.
When the worker loses their jobs over bad executive decisions, they sure feel like they were pretty harshly financially penalized for those decisions.
Neither are CEOs in our present society
Are you confusing CEOs with founders, shareholders, etc.? Chief Executive Officer is, in fact, a "job."
I wish that was true some how. In real world unfortunately the buck stops at whoever is easy scape goat, at times it can be a CEO
Rewponsibility is why we pay external consultants!