The paradox of managerial tyranny

Abstract

259 to 210BC), the First Emperor of China, is famous forunifying a fragmented nation consisting of fief-doms that were feuding with each other. Early Chinesehistorians described him as a tyrant whose methods in-cluded large-scale extermination of all traces of Confu-cianism. He destroyed all books written before his reign,believing them to be breeding grounds for future dissent.He then began an elaborate campaign of empire buildingby defeating the feudal lords and integrating their do-mains into his empire. He also created infrastructure de-velopment programs such as road construction and theexpansion of the Great Wall—often using forced labor. Hecreated a highly centralized and bureaucratic form of gov-ernment to link the emperor to the central provinces andthereby to the villages. Under his rule, for the first time inChinese history, a standardized system of weights andmeasures, coinage, and writing was established. Accordingto Li (1975), his legacy lasted for nearly 2,000 years. Many examples of extraordinary human achievementsthroughout history present a paradox that is enduringeven in our modern age. In our admiration for the GreatWall of China, the Great Pyramids of Egypt, the ancientMayan and Aztec ruins, India’s Taj Mahal, and artifactsof the empires of yesteryear, we often forget that theseemblems of human accomplishment were often forgedunder conditions of despotism and tyranny. One irony isthat the Great Wall and the Pyramids are thought to bethe only two man-made creations visible to astronauts inouter space. Such is the scale of things wrought undertyrannical conditions.The same holds true in the business world. Some of themost celebrated CEOs in business history have beenempire builders and great conquerors. Their strategiesbear a strong resemblance to those used by China’s firstemperor—minus the actual bloodshed. Many of theseCEOs were quite tyrannical in their methods, and WallStreet often worshipped them because they delivered spec-tacular financial results and built huge, thriving compa-nies. A case in point is the pervasiveness of the dominant