In 2007 chief executive officers earned on average 180 times more than their subordinates. This is more than double the multiple of fifteen years ago. To be clear, total direct compensation – salary, bonuses, restricted shares, stock options and other annual and long-term incentives – rose only a relatively modest 3.5 % from a year earlier. But the extreme pay gains for CEOs in the last couple of decades, and the now deep economic divide between them and others in their organisation is in violation of everything we know, or think we know, about good leadership.

The first chief executive officer to pull in more than a million a year was Revlon's Michel Bergerac, in 1974. Here are three in the top tier in 2007:
• John Thain, CEO of Merrill Lynch, $78.5 million
• Ray Irani, CEO of Occidental Petroleum, $60.9 million
• Kenneth Chenault, CEO of American Express, $46.2 million


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