Driven people will work hard regardless, and in leadership, the right kind of leaders will work mainly for the reputation, fulfillment from a job well done, people elevated, legacy, etc - and a respectful level of comp. The narcissists, grifters and mercenaries maybe need the $$$$$.
Edit: I should clarify I mean high tax rates on the wealthy.
Not everybody is driven by work. Many people are driving by the things they can get from work. The mythical rational man would eventually see that hard work isn't worth the toys anymore and so will start finding something cheaper to spend money on. You need to eat, but you can eat "beef and caviar", or "rice and beans" - at very different prices.
They might be still CEOs even if they get paid $1, but all things being equal, they'll still go for the higher paying job. What happens if you have a competent CEO and your competitor decides to poach him? This happens all the time. Starbucks recently poached Chipotle's CEO. Given the different trajectories in stock price between chipotle and starbucks, the incoming CEO is arguably more competent. The market seems to agree[1]. If you pay your CEOs $1, it's only a matter of time before your competitor poaches him and you're left with a worse CEO.
[1] https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1424,quality=8...
Free markets run rampant when they are not properly harnessed to the common good, and this is surely a case where they should be harnessed.
The argument is that good leaders are usually driven by things other than a huge salary, and so long as the salary isn't an insult, will do what they do.
So why offer huge salaries to CEOs? It just attracts the kind of leaders that only care for the money.
This is empirically not true.