I agree with others here pointing that firing people isn't necessary a sign of having mismanaged the company.
However, i think a good gesture as a CEO when acknowledging your company is going through rough times would be things like postponing your bonus, or diminishing your payroll. That would be classy.
Note that the same could be said for politicians in charge. You want people in the country to make sacrifice and endure tough reforms ? Ok, start with your own payroll and various benefits. Lead through example.
Unfortunately greed is going too strong those days.
That would still ultimately be spun as greed and proof they were getting pay increases when everyone else was suffering - at least, that's what happened in the UK when a bunch of CEOs didn't get their normal bonuses during Covid. This substantially decreased the total pay of the average FTSE 100 CEO that year, and once it returned to normal every news outlet ran articles about how their pay had increased by a massive amount in the last year alone whilst ordinary workers' pay had decreased over the last decade. Of course, it was really only their pay returning to normal after dropping substantially over the last year or two in a way that normal workers' pay had not, and the actual numbers in the report this way all based on put their pay at lower than it was a decade ago.
Still, the press managed to turn them taking a temporary cut in pay that ordinary workers didn't suffer from into them getting an increase in pay that ordinary workers didn't get.
What if you could run an ad empire without employees? The human component of marginal cost in that business is zero. From capital's perspective, the final stage of perfection would be just a CEO serving the legal requirement of one existing. Surely that person wouldn't have to fret about their bonus...
However, i think a good gesture as a CEO when acknowledging your company is going through rough times would be things like postponing your bonus, or diminishing your payroll. That would be classy.
Note that the same could be said for politicians in charge. You want people in the country to make sacrifice and endure tough reforms ? Ok, start with your own payroll and various benefits. Lead through example.
Unfortunately greed is going too strong those days.