When You’re the Boss, but Your Employees Make More Money

When NFL quarterback Justin Herbert and NBA star Jaylen Brown signed contracts this summer worth $262.5 million and $304 million, respectively, they struck the richest deals in their leagues’ histories. They’re also outearning their bosses by millions a year.

Professional athletes often command higher salaries than their coaches, since it’s harder to find people to execute plays than diagram them. And individual contributors can earn more than managers in a lot of fields, from finance and tech to sales and media. 

The sticking point is how bosses and their charges deal with those imbalances.

There are two keys to a functional working relationship when a subordinate makes more money than their manager, people in both camps tell me: The boss must possess the humility to accept the situation and the confidence to project authority. And the highly paid employee can’t be a diva.

Richard Reice, a labor attorney and chief people officer of a restaurant group, says fat paychecks can lead to entitlement and make a highly paid employee practically unmanageable.

“Some refuse to do basic things, like attend meetings, just because they think they’re silly,” he says. 

When leadership doesn’t pay

It’s hard to quantify how frequently rank-and-file workers make more than their bosses, but Reice says he has observed a shift from his dual perches in employment law and human resources. Many companies are scrapping the old notion that bigger titles should automatically mean bigger bucks. Instead of promoting star employees into management, where administrative duties can siphon time from their true talents, more businesses are keeping top performers in individual-contributor roles—and paying them like bosses. 

Leadership, in these situations, is considered like any other skill, and not necessarily one that is worth more money.

We’re more likely to notice now when someone outearns the boss. The pandemic-era rise of distributed teams was accompanied by cost-of-living adjustments, which meant a manager based in an inexpensive town might earn less than direct reports living in pricier cities.

Pay-transparency laws have given some bosses the jarring experience of seeing less-senior positions at their companies posted on job boards with advertised salaries that exceed their own. Market demand can explain some discrepancies; in other cases, racial, age or gender biases could be to blame.

Keep your ego in check

Nikki Barua, who runs the women’s leadership program Beyond Barriers, says her clients in managerial positions sometimes feel underpaid relative to subordinates and are unsure whether discrimination is a factor. Bosses need to recognize there are often valid reasons behind pay, she says, and advises managers to pay more attention to what their fellow bosses make.

“The star performer is not the right comparison,” she says. 

Barua says that in previous roles at technology and consulting firms, her knack for bringing in business sometimes led to incentives that pushed her pay over her managers’. She kept her ego in check by viewing her skill as a blessing, remembering that others might be equally good at different jobs that the labor market rewards less generously.

Now, as an entrepreneur trying to conserve cash, she’s sometimes paid herself less than her employees. She admits that, at times, it was hard not to resent people making more than she did, feeling that she’d be able to draw a salary if only they’d work harder or do better.

Founders often draw modest salaries, or none at all, in companies’ early days, says Jeff Bussgang, general partner in the Boston office of startup investor Flybridge Capital Partners. 

“Naturally, if they own a big chunk of equity, it makes it all more palatable,” he says.

Plus, owners’ status is seldom in doubt, regardless of pay. Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett, who acquired a controlling stake in the company in 1965, has for several decades taken an annual salary of $100,000. His total compensation last year was $401,589, while two vice chairmen earned more than $19 million apiece. Buffett, the world’s sixth-richest person with a net worth of $122 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, derives most of his income from investments.

Bosses who earn less

Ellen Taaffe, who sits on the compensation committees of several companies, including AARP Services, says corporate boards often set pay by studying the going rates for similar roles in other organizations. Boards can ease potential tension by giving junior executives lower base salaries and enabling them to surpass more senior leaders only through bonuses for exceeding expectations. Usually the people with the loftiest titles make the most money, but not always, notes Taaffe, who teaches at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. 

For instance, the chief scientific officer of a biotech company—whose research might be the crux of the business’s success or failure—could be paid more than the CEO. George Yancopoulos, the chief scientific officer of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, has received almost $435 million in total compensation since 2012, according to securities filings, making him the company’s highest-paid employee over that span. (Regeneron may be best known for its monoclonal antibody treatment for Covid.)

At some universities, the highest-paid employee isn’t the president; it’s the football coach or the person who manages the endowment. The $2.2 million pay package awarded to Yale University President Peter Salovey last fiscal year was one-third of what the chief investment officer earned, according to tax filings. 

Leaders who successfully handle higher-paid employees find satisfaction in helping others shine, Taaffe says.

Warren Cereghino, a retired TV news director in California, says he kept pride at bay by reminding himself that viewers tuned in to watch his station’s anchors, who earned more than he did as their boss. He says the on-air talent didn’t abuse their sway.

Still, being privy to their contracts, he knew that some had negotiated a measure of editorial control in addition to large salaries. If there was a disagreement, he wouldn’t necessarily win.

“Even though my name was on the door of the news director’s office, there was a limit to my power,” he says.

—Theo Francis contributed to this article.

Write to Callum Borchers at [email protected]