A new Rasmussen poll has found that just 22 percent of American adults have a "favorable" opinion of the CEOs of the nation's largest corporations. That's twice as low as their opinion of bankers, and far lower than their view of lawyers (41%), journalists (38%), and stockbrokers and financial analysts (37%). Only Members of Congress were equally disdained—barely more than one in four Americans views them favorably.

These are bad times. So, widespread public grumpiness shouldn't surprise. But I find it remarkable that, with the banks absorbing much of the blame for the mortgage and securities mess and the stock market at near-record lows, the banker-stockbroker-analyst gang fared so much better than CEOs and Congress. So, what gives?

In my view, this poll reveals a sharp distinction in the public's mind between the people who may have helped to get us into this crisis and those they hold responsible for getting us out of it. It's the buck-stops-here phenomenon. They don't much like the Wall Street crowd (and the journalists who cover them), but they are even less happy with the leadership charged with putting Humpty-Dumpty together again.

There are some obvious reasons for this, starting with the inexcusable PR blunders of CEOs commuting to congressional-bailout hearings in their private Gulf IVs, or approving vacation-destination retreats at the same time they were pocketing taxpayer money to keep their companies afloat.

Also noting this collapse in public trust in business, one of the larger PR firms issued a press release insisting: "Business must recast its role in society and move beyond simply generating ROI to its shareholders. It must partner with government and other institutions to assume societal responsibilities." Hmmm...it would seem to me most Americans would appreciate a little more ROI-to-shareholders right about now. They're not looking for big business to assume greater societal responsibility; they're worried about keeping their job, their house, and getting their life-savings back.

So, here's the message for today's CEO: Improving your image will be a function of performance far more than "restoring trust" (at least as the PR firms define it). If Jeffrey Immelt ever gets ousted from General Electric (which I'm certainly not advocating), it won't be because the public distrusts GE or feels it hasn't adequately assumed "societal responsibilities," which the company has done in spades. It will have a lot to do with a share price that dropped 56% in 2008. Today's crisis-management is all about performance. It's put up or shut up time. What people want is a plan, follow-through and accountability. They want results.