Han Fei's Leadership

The way of leadership in Han Fei's thoughts

The way of management is always a controversial topic to discuss. No matter in which society, the leadership is significant affect how people work for you. Thus, how can we become more successful in management? Han Fei is an intelligent person, he gives us his answer. The reason I choose to study Han Fei is because he has a quite different view from other brilliant philosophies. The book Han Fei Zi is the masterpiece represents the law doctrine written by Han Fei. In this book, Han Fei wrote narratives and short stories provided many strategies to the rulers about how to manage the country and the people. To study Han Fei Zi will help us to know better about the nature of human and try to understand Han Fei's way of management. In this essay, I will discuss about what does Han Fei thought about nature of human, and what are the strategies does Han Fei used, also what are the limitations of his thoughts.

It is essential to know Han Fei's thought on the the human nature before to study his thought on management. Han Fei has a critical view which is more realisms than other famous philosophies like Confucians. Han Fei abandoned the discussion on human nature either is bad or good. He assumed the nature of human is self-fish. For example, in the article "Bei Nei", Han Fei wrote that Wang Liang love his horse and Gou Jian love his people, these are not because they have merciful hearts, instead, these because the horse and the people are just their interests. The reasons are the horse can be drive by Wang Liang, and the people can be fight for Gou Jian. Moreover, he said the doctor suck the wound for the patient is not because he is very nobleness or he has closed relationship with the patient, it is because the doctor got the interest from this. Also, the people who made the sedan chairs would like to see many rich people so they can make more sedan chairs and gain profit. It is similar to the people who made biers. They would like to see many people die. These are not because the sedan makers are good and the bier makers are bad, in fact, because they all drive by their interests or profits. Thus, according to Han Fei, generally, the human nature is self-fish in essence.

I personally agree with Han Fei that he believed that human nature is self interest. As a famous quote by Winston Churchill, "Neither friends nor rivals are everlasting, but only profits." I think this still apply to the modern society. For example, the boss or the manager increase the wages to the workers, is not because he like the employees or he felt sensitive to them, it is because the manager would like to motivate the workers to work more efficient for him then he could make more profits. However, I think self-interest is not the only human nature. In other words, human nature is not simple to say it is good or bad or self-fish. For example, the parents love the children without any self-interest. Thus, I think human nature is very complex and it include good and bad both characters.

Han Fei based on his assumption which human nature is self-interest developed his thoughts. He argued that to use the law instead of benevolence govern the country. Firstly, he targeted who should be managed by the ruler directly. Han Fei argued that the ruler manage the officials is much more efficient than manage the mass of the people. He believed the saint does not need to be close to each of the particular people, and the wise ruler does not need to do the detail things. For example, in the article "Wai Chu Shuo You Xia", Han Fei used metaphor to tell his opinion. Supposed there is person who wants to shake the trees, if he lifts each of the leaves he would not let all the leaves shake until he felt exhaustion. However, if the person shakes the bole, so the leaves would all shake. Also, the people who good at fishing, what they only do is holding the cord in their hands carefully, so the fish could jump into the fishing net. If they do each mesh, they would get nothing and felt very tired. Han Fei believed these examples had same meaning to the ruler govern the