No, it’s not. It’s to engage it best.
Take two cultures: one that executes leaders for making bad calls and one that judges them according to what they knew when they made the decision. Who wins?
We’ve run this experiment hundreds of times because it’s appealing to think steep consequences for bad decisions leads to good decisions. But it doesn’t. It causes caution and indecision. The example that comes to mind is Carthage vs. Rome; the former executed failed generals while in Rome "defeated generals seldom faced serious punishments" [1].
[1] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/libyan-studies/artic...
Considering solely risk, sure. There are other relevant inputs. More pertinently, this is why we have public services and safety nets.
If you can convince people that you are deserving of leadership, you have the guts to put yourself on the line in front of tens or hundreds or thousands of people, go ahead. This is your life and the people you are responsible for. If you do this and want to work for peanuts, be my guest. I get paid what the market thinks I’m worth.
> I get paid what the market thinks I’m worth.
It helps when “the market” is your peers who also benefit from benchmarking higher salaries for management.
Why? It makes perfect sense to hold CEOs to a much higher standard than ordinary employees. There is nothing flawed about that at all.
> excuse you could make applies to the CEO as well.
Well it shouldn’t
Businesses will continue to employee you as long as they think it’s a net benefit to them. Their outlook can change at anytime and for nonsensical reasons.
I would suggest accepting this state of affairs. That might mean making sure you have savings, or up to date job skills. Refusing to believe this can happen to you because you have worked so hard or been so loyal will only lead to heartache.
Either way these are just wishful normative statements. The business reality is that they will not guarantee you a job.