You make some excellent points and I completely agree with the thrust of your argument that people should not be so quick to judge.
However, from my empirical observation of many executives, there are two broad groups.
The ones you described, those that are worth their salt and have carved out their position through helping the business.
Then there is a large group of executives who exist mainly because similar companies have similar structures and they have expectations of roles for say CFO , COO. Then there are roles required by the industry or market: Head of Compliance, Head of Risk, Head of Auditing.
Those executives have not earned their place, they are appointments by pattern matching corporate structures
However, from my empirical observation of many executives, there are two broad groups.
The ones you described, those that are worth their salt and have carved out their position through helping the business.
Then there is a large group of executives who exist mainly because similar companies have similar structures and they have expectations of roles for say CFO , COO. Then there are roles required by the industry or market: Head of Compliance, Head of Risk, Head of Auditing.
Those executives have not earned their place, they are appointments by pattern matching corporate structures