in my experience its a little more like "maximise how much the largest shareholders' representatives will give me a big grin and tell me about their summer vaca

in my experience its a little more like "maximise how much the largest shareholders' representatives will give me a big grin and tell me about their summer vacation plans and act all friendly with me" occasionally with a more cynical view towards getting them to pay me personally more money. (where "me" here means specifically the CEO and to a lesser extent the C-Suite. Variations and echoes of this incentive echo downwards where these people then take on the role of the important shareholders) This correlates somewhat with actually maximising shareholder value, but not that exactly. For example, short term profits are good, losses can be fine if you have a good story about why its good that key shareholders believe, etc.