Narrow -
Harriet Green was previously CEO at Premier Farnell, a successful plc with a market capitalisation of £600m+. She has moved to TC, a desperately-troubled group on the verge of bankruptcy, with a market cap of under £200m.
She had to be enticed to pick up this poisoned chalice, and one of the ways of doing it is to offer her a stake in the business, which is cost-free, but offers her potential gain if she is successful. It was probably accompanied by a lower salary than she would otherwise earn.
Issuing shares is no guarantee that a company won't go bust, but when it does, the holder of the shares gets nothing.
Sounds eminently sensible to me.