When most companies hit hard times, there’s a familiar script: the workers absorb the pain through layoffs and pay cuts, while the people at the very top quietly protect their own bonuses. One airline executive tore that script up — and became a quiet legend for it.
Facing serious financial trouble, this CEO of a major national airline was forced to cut his employees’ salaries. What he did next is the part people never forget: he cut his own pay too — all the way down to around $90,000 a year, less than some of the pilots and staff who reported to him.
And it wasn’t a one-time headline stunt. He lived it. He took the public city bus to work like an ordinary commuter. He ate lunch in the same company cafeteria as his employees, in the same line, off the same trays. He bought his suits at a discount store instead of a boutique.
He even had the walls of his executive office knocked down, so that anyone in the company could walk up and talk to him without an appointment or a gatekeeper. The corner office, the symbol of distance between the boss and everyone else, simply stopped existing.
THE STORY CONTINUES ON THE NEXT PAGE… 👇👇👇
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