Leadership and Management in China: Philosophies, Theories, and Practices

(Jacob Rumans) #1

they complained that prostitution was a violation of the social order
and is punishable by administrative detention rather than a criminal
conviction and a prison sentence. A Party leader promoted the parade
as a way to discourage prostitution. The struggle between Party and
legal authority continues (Business Week, 2006 ).


Leadership in feudal China


China, with its high-density population, discovered very early in her
history the value of networks of human relationships for ordering
family affairs, village commerce, and interactions with the state. As
described inChapter 1, these networks were transformed into systems
of obligations to superiors and parental responsibility for the welfare
of subordinates by the Confucian system. On the surface, this system
was based on ancestry of family and virtue of all including govern-
ment. As discussed inChapter 2, it was later revised to recognize the
dual nature of man. Confucius and Mencius saw only the god-man
side of humans and designed a structure for their society. However,
they overlooked the animal-man side of humans that needed to
be socialized by education, beginning in the family and extending
throughout the networks. They also recognized individual differences
in people. These things were documented through research in psychol-
ogy in the West during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Later,
Hanfei made his contributions to refining bureaucracy, by which large
populations could be governed.
Daoistic leadership, described inChapter 3, turns to the concept
of ‘‘like water’’ and reminds us that leaders often appeal to values to
attract dedicated followers. Humans need their values to give them
something beyond their short and otherwise animal existence. We
need a higher calling to become a sage leader. To many Chinese,
Daoism is the path to be followed.
Hwang, a social psychologist, outlined inChapter 4the history of
leadership thought from a modern Taiwanese perspective focusing
on Hanfei’s theory of leadership. Hwang contends that Hanfei’s
theory of Legalism can be reorganized to be applicable to both a
feudal state and a modern organization in Taiwan. He outlines how
Legalism rationalized the Confucian order to become akin to Weber’s
bureaucracy and replaced the old aristocracy with bureaucrats. Unfor-
tunately, the competitive knowledge economy has made the classic


Linking Chinese leadership theory and practice to the world 279

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