Would you want to be CEO of a controversial company?

I am an intern at a very large, fascinating company in a sector that is very important to the future of the environment. If that were not the case, I would have stopped my internship last week. The company has some major operational and management issues, and I have come to realize that, while everyone in the company is passionate about the company's mission, people in leadership are way more passionate about the company's shareholders than about the mission. That's fine, I knew this was the case coming in, but boy did I learn a lesson about how much the company's profit matters more to leadership than the company's mission. <br><br>Would you want to be CEO of a controversial company? Or CEO of any company, for that matter? Or would you rather be a manager in a department than CEO? CEOs are, I think, the most indispensable people in a company. CEOs get to make the decisions on everything, and they get to steer the company in any direction they want. I think it would be really fun to be CEO.<br><br>But at the same time, CEOs have to be worried about lawsuits, bankrupting the company, etc. Can you imagine being CEO but having a bad day and making a bad call? As CEO, you do not have superiors that can bail you out if you mess up. I guess you could say this is the case for any leader in any company, but I think it would be more stressful to be CEO than, say, a mid-level manager. Also, while CEOs get to steer the company where they want, in my case you would have to steer the company in whatever direction shareholders approve of, which could be a drag.<br><br>I guess this question is similar to: would you want to be president or prime minister of your country? This is sort of off-topic, but I think CEOs have more of an impact on the world than politicians because they don't have the legislative process to contend with (they don't have to wrangle votes), so CEOs set the agenda.