Rewarding a top leadership team (TLT), a diverse group of executives working collaboratively to guide the organization, presents a complex challenge. We adopt a team-based perspective that recognizes the complementarities between two dimensions that have been examined largely in isolation: (1) CEO’s unique leadership role, as reflected in the size of the CEO pay slice; and (2) team cohesion among the CEO’s top team, as reflected in the degree of pay dispersion. Our findings, based on analysis of a longitudinal sample, show that, on average, firms with high CEO pay slice, whether combined with high or low pay dispersion, significantly outperform firms with low CEO pay slice on return on equity (ROE) and return on assets (ROA). DuPont decomposition reveals that this performance advantage stems primarily from higher profit margins rather than asset turnover or financial leverage. Cross-sectional analyses demonstrate that TLTs characterized by a high CEO pay slice and low pay dispersion (High-Low profile) exhibits particularly strong performance in settings characterized by greater innovation intensity and more competitive product markets, environments where team cohesion is critical in executing the CEO’s vision. We also document that the High-Low profile generates significantly higher cumulative abnormal returns over 18 to 36 months, indicating that markets recognize and value this TLT compensation structure. Exploratory analysis reveals a U-shaped relationship between pay dispersion and performance among firms with high CEO pay slice, suggesting that both low dispersion (team cohesion) and high dispersion (exceptional individual talent) can be valuable when strong CEO leadership is present.