Why I wouldn’t follow Mukesh into battle

I was about to get really happy when I read that Mukesh Ambani, Asia’s richest man, was cutting his salary by 66 percent this year.
Then I read on. And grew less happy. Here’s why:
1) He already has 19.5 billion dollars in the bank.
2) His salary for 2009 will still be 3.2 million dollars, while the average Indian makes $3,801.
3) He will make 232 million dollars in dividends for this year.
4) He only acted after Indian authorities called for CEOs to relax their crazy salary increases.
Why is his hoarding a problem? Because the money is just sitting there. It’s not working to make Indian society better, or to advance human development. It’s just sitting there. “Just in cases,” as that Portuguese maid at the end of Love Actually would have said. But which “unforeseen expenditure” are you covering for if you need $19.5 billion as a buffer?
Real leaders set examples, sometimes so powerful that we are willing to do anything (even leave our jobs) to help them succeed. When Lee Iacocca took over Chrysler in 1978 and realized it was on the brink of ruin (yes, it has happened before), he cut his own salary to one dollar for the first year. That’s what I call a CEO who isn’t in it for the money.
Mukesh? Not so much.