After asking what a CEO should do when a star employee becomes difficult, we now ask the broader question: what does leadership owe the ordinary employee who may never become the star?
And let’s NOT make this this a fluffy “CEOs should care about employees” piece. The sharper Lion question is:
If salary is the price of labour, what is the organisation responsible for creating around that labour?
Here is the story.
A salary pays for work. But does it pay for everything an organisation asks a person to give?
There is a sentence employees hear often:
“We pay you to do your job.”
And technically, there is truth in it.
An employee exchanges labour, skills and time for compensation.
The company pays.
The employee works.
That is the transaction.
But anyone who has actually spent years inside an organisation knows that employment is rarely only a financial transaction.
People give more than hours.
They give attention.
Energy.
Ideas.
Loyalty.
Relationships.
Reputation.
Emotional effort.
Sometimes, their evenings.
Sometimes, their weekends.
Sometimes, years of their lives.
So the question for the modern CEO is not simply:
“Are we paying people?”
It is:
“What do we owe people who spend a significant part of their lives helping us build this organisation?”
That question becomes particularly important in a workplace where employees can increasingly compare employers, discuss their experiences publicly and move between opportunities more easily.
Because salary may get someone through the door.
It does not necessarily determine what makes them stay.
Salary is the beginning of the employment conversation, not the end
A salary is important.
Very important.
No amount of motivational language can compensate indefinitely for unfair or inadequate pay.
Employees have bills.
Families.
Rent.
Transport.
School fees.
Medical expenses.
Financial goals.
A company that refuses to compensate people fairly cannot solve the problem with pizza, motivational speeches or “family” language.
But once fair compensation is established, another set of questions emerges.
Does the employee have a manager who treats them with dignity?
Do they know what is expected of them?
Can they raise concerns without fear?
Do they have opportunities to develop?
Are they given the tools required to do their jobs?
Are decisions explained when they affect them?
Are promotions reasonably transparent?
Is good work recognised?
Are mistakes treated as opportunities to learn or opportunities to humiliate?
Is the workplace physically and psychologically safe?
These things are not identical to salary.
They are part of the employment experience.
And the CEO has influence over the system that creates that experience.
A CEO owes clarity
One of the most frustrating experiences at work is not necessarily being told “no.”
It is not knowing.
Not knowing what the organisation wants.
Not knowing why a decision was made.
Not knowing what success looks like.
Not knowing whether the company is in trouble.
Not knowing whether your role is changing.
Not knowing why someone else was promoted.
Not knowing what happens next.
People can tolerate difficult realities better when leaders are honest about them.
A CEO cannot always promise good news.
But employees should not have to build their understanding of the company entirely from rumours.
Clarity does not mean telling employees every confidential detail.
It means communicating what people reasonably need to understand their work and the direction of the organisation.
A CEO owes people the truth — especially when the truth is uncomfortable
This may be one of the most underrated responsibilities of leadership.
If the company is struggling, employees deserve honest communication.
If a major restructuring is coming, communication should not begin with rumours on WhatsApp.
If a strategy has failed, leadership should be able to say it failed.
If jobs are genuinely at risk, pretending everything is fine until the last possible moment does not make leadership more reassuring.
It makes employees less prepared.
And when leaders repeatedly tell people things that later prove untrue, something valuable begins to disappear:
trust.
Trust is difficult to build because employees do not only listen to what leaders say.
They compare what leaders say with what actually happens.
A CEO owes employees decent management
This sounds almost embarrassingly basic.
It shouldn’t.
An organisation can hire excellent people and still make their working lives miserable because management is poor.
A CEO cannot personally manage everyone.
But the CEO determines, directly or indirectly, what kind of management the organisation rewards.
Does the company promote managers who develop people?
Or only managers who hit numbers?
Are managers trained?
Are poor managers held accountable?
Can an employee report inappropriate behaviour without fearing retaliation?
Does HR exist merely to protect the organisation, or does it also provide credible processes for employees?
The CEO may not know the name of every employee.
But the CEO is responsible for the system through which those employees experience management.
That distinction matters.
A CEO owes employees the tools to succeed
There is a peculiar organisational habit of blaming employees for outcomes while underinvesting in the conditions required to produce those outcomes.
“Why didn’t you hit target?”
Did the employee have the product?
Was there stock?
Was the marketing support available?
Did the system work?
Was the budget approved?
Did they have the information?
Was the target realistic?
Were other departments cooperating?
“Why is productivity low?”
Did the employee have the equipment?
The software?
The internet?
The staffing?
The authority?
The training?
The working environment?
Accountability without resources can become theatre.
If a company expects people to perform, leadership has a responsibility to provide reasonable conditions for that performance.
A CEO owes employees the opportunity to grow
Not everyone wants to become a CEO.
That is important.
Career development should not be treated as a conveyor belt where everyone is expected to become a manager.
One employee may want leadership.
Another may want technical mastery.
Another may want international exposure.
Another may want to become a specialist.
Another may want to build a business eventually.
Another may simply want to become excellent at the job they already have.
A good organisation should not assume that development means only promotion.
It can mean:
More responsibility.
Training.
Mentorship.
Exposure.
New projects.
Professional certifications.
Cross-functional experience.
Better tools.
Challenging assignments.
Feedback.
The CEO does not personally owe every employee a promotion.
But the organisation should not systematically trap capable people at the level at which they were hired.
A CEO owes employees the dignity of being treated like adults
This one matters enormously.
Employees are adults.
They may need supervision.
They may need correction.
They may make mistakes.
But none of that removes their dignity.
There is a difference between accountability and humiliation.
A manager can say:
“This work is below the required standard.”
without saying:
“You are useless.”
A CEO can reject an idea without ridiculing the person who proposed it.
A company can discipline an employee without publicly degrading them.
A leader can demand excellence without creating fear as the primary management tool.
And perhaps most importantly:
employees should not have to surrender their dignity in exchange for their salaries.
A CEO owes employees psychological safety — but not permanent comfort
This distinction is important.
A healthy workplace is not one where nobody is challenged.
People should be challenged.
Performance should be measured.
Deadlines should exist.
Poor work should be addressed.
Hard conversations should happen.
The idea of psychological safety is not that everyone should feel comfortable all the time.
It is closer to the ability to speak, question, admit mistakes and raise concerns without unreasonable fear of humiliation or retaliation.
That matters because organisations cannot learn from problems employees are afraid to report.
A CEO who creates an environment where everyone says “Yes, sir” may have created a very obedient workplace.
They may not have created a very intelligent one.
A CEO owes employees fairness
Fairness does not necessarily mean treating everyone identically.
Different people have different responsibilities, performance levels and circumstances.
But employees notice inconsistency.
One person is punished for breaking a rule.
Another person breaks the same rule because they are close to management.
One employee is told there is no budget for an increase.
Another receives a special adjustment without explanation.
One manager is disciplined for bullying.
Another is protected because they deliver results.
This is how employees learn whether organisational values are real.
Culture is often what happens when the rules meet somebody powerful.
If leadership wants employees to respect the organisation, employees need evidence that the organisation respects its own standards.
A CEO owes employees the right to disagree
This may be particularly important at the top.
CEOs receive filtered information.
The higher a person rises, the more people may become careful about what they tell them.
That creates a leadership risk.
If employees believe disagreement will be punished, bad news travels slowly upward.
And bad news that travels slowly eventually becomes expensive.
A CEO should therefore be interested in creating channels through which people can say:
“I think this is wrong.”
“I don’t understand this decision.”
“I think the customer is unhappy.”
“I think this target is unrealistic.”
“I think we are losing good people.”
“I think we are making a mistake.”
Not every employee suggestion should be accepted.
But employees should not have to choose between honesty and career survival.
A CEO owes employees some sense of purpose
This does not mean every company needs inspirational posters.
It means people should be able to understand what their work contributes to.
A person processing invoices may never meet the customer.
A person maintaining software may never see the business outcome directly.
A junior employee may spend weeks on tasks that seem disconnected from the company’s larger mission.
Leaders have a responsibility to connect the dots.
Here is what we are building.
Here is why your work matters.
Here is what happens when your part is done well.
Purpose is not a substitute for salary.
But meaning can change how people experience work.
A CEO owes employees a company worth being associated with
This is easy to overlook.
People do not only work for companies.
Their names become associated with them.
Their LinkedIn profiles list them.
Their CVs carry them.
Their professional networks know them as employees of those organisations.
Their reputations can become connected to the organisation’s reputation.
That means leadership decisions can become employee reputation risks.
A company involved in unethical conduct may not only damage its shareholders.
It may also leave employees explaining to friends, clients and future employers why they worked there.
The CEO therefore carries responsibility for more than the quarterly result.
The company is part of the professional identity of the people who work there.
A CEO owes employees a reasonable chance to disconnect
This is becoming increasingly complicated.
Technology has made employees reachable almost everywhere.
WhatsApp.
Email.
Teams.
Slack.
Phone calls.
The fact that somebody can be reached at 10:47 p.m. does not automatically mean they should be.
Some roles genuinely require emergency availability.
Some do not.
The responsibility is to distinguish the two.
If everything is urgent, nothing is.
If employees are permanently connected, the organisation may eventually confuse availability with productivity.
And a person who is physically away from the office but mentally still working may not actually be resting.
But what does the employee owe the CEO?
This conversation should not become one-sided.
The employment relationship is mutual.
Employees owe employers honest work.
Professional conduct.
Accountability.
Respect.
Confidentiality where appropriate.
Responsibility for their commitments.
Willingness to learn.
And the courage to communicate when they cannot deliver.
A company is not a charity.
Neither is an employee.
The point is not that CEOs owe employees unlimited benefits, emotional fulfilment or guaranteed career progression.
They don’t.
The point is that employment is an exchange involving more than money.
The CEO cannot promise everyone happiness
Nor should they try.
There will be difficult projects.
Bad quarters.
Rejected promotions.
Performance conversations.
Organisational changes.
Customers who complain.
Managers who make mistakes.
Employees who leave.
Companies cannot eliminate every unpleasant part of working life.
But leadership can determine whether difficulty is handled with dignity.
That may be the difference.
A difficult message delivered honestly is different from deception.
A tough target with resources and clarity is different from an impossible target with blame.
A rejected promotion with feedback is different from unexplained favouritism.
A restructuring handled transparently is different from rumours followed by surprise.
The CEO cannot control every outcome.
They can influence how people experience the outcome.
The salary question is therefore bigger than salary
Imagine an employee asking:
“Why should I stay here?”
The answer cannot always be:
“Because we pay you.”
Another company may pay more.
Another company may offer better flexibility.
Another may offer faster career development.
Another may offer a stronger brand.
Another may offer international exposure.
Another may simply have a better manager.
Salary is part of the value proposition.
It is not the entire proposition.
The organisations that understand this are not necessarily the ones that give employees everything they ask for.
They are the ones that understand what employees are actually exchanging.
Time for money.
Skill for opportunity.
Performance for recognition.
Loyalty for trust.
Ideas for influence.
Years for experience.
And sometimes:
A significant portion of a person’s life for a place in the organisation’s future.
That is not a trivial exchange.
So what does a CEO really owe employees?
Not happiness.
Not permanent employment.
Not automatic promotion.
Not unlimited flexibility.
Not a perfect workplace.
Not the removal of every difficulty.
But perhaps these:
Fairness.
Clarity.
Dignity.
Safety.
Resources.
Opportunity to develop.
Honest communication.
Reasonable accountability.
The ability to speak without unreasonable fear.
And leadership that remembers there are human beings behind the payroll numbers.
Because a salary answers one question:
“What are you paying me?”
Leadership answers another:
“What kind of organisation am I being asked to give my time to?”
And for a CEO, that second question may be the one employees remember long after they receive their final payslip.
THE LION TAKE
A salary pays for someone’s work.
It does not give a CEO permission to waste their time, diminish their dignity, hide the truth from them, deny them the tools to succeed or create an environment where fear replaces leadership.
The CEO’s job is not to make every employee happy.
It is to build an organisation where people can work, contribute, grow and disagree without surrendering their dignity.
Because employees don’t just give companies labour.
They give them years.
And years are an asset no payroll can fully replace.
Beyond fair pay, what is the one thing you believe a CEO owes employees and why?
