This does not explain how CEOs such as Fiorina and Elop can inject themselves into established companies, run them into the ground, and still walk away with lavish rewards. They are in a completely different category than ordinary Workers.
And even hard to get right matters little if you have a golden parachute (as many CEOs do). You can drive a company (or an entire sector) to the ground and still get your nice bonus.
Not that the CEO should be completely out of the loop (she has to sign off, after all).
But if a CEO is dealing with nitty, gritty details if finances there's a severe delegation issue at best and a detail obsessed control-freak at worst.
A European company with major cash holdings may want to diversify currency, but that could be seen as speculative. The working capital requirements and details of the revolving loans they have from the bank. The list goes on.
The value-adds from a good CEO are outstanding strategy, positive corporate brand creation, and investor/shareholder relationship management.
The first two aren't hard in the bureaucratic sense, but in the creative sense. A lot of CEOs are terrible at them - see the long list of companies run into the ground by very poor decisions.
The last one is helped a lot by having the correct class background. It's nightmarishly hard for outsiders, and can be anywhere from not hard at all to equally nightmarish for insiders.
-leading a company
-dealing with finances
-constantly making important decisions
As a hard job.