Qin Shi Huang

I just reading an article about World Expo Shanghai and leadership and I found them talking about Qin Shi Huang – the 1st emperor of China.

Many would think of him as a tyrant, a dictator and one that is cruel, in short a bad guy. History tells us that Qin is a man of great talent and bold vision.  He has great leadership strategies, though not good leadership qualities (which are 2 different concepts).

We can definitely learn a lot from his leadership strategies because of this 1 thing: Anyone can conquer lands and unite them with military might, but few can lay down a unified system of governance that is so long lasting until today.  Just like in management, anyone can be promoted to be a manager, but few can establish lasting people strategies that win for the company for a long time.  These are the facts:
1. Qin simplified the Chinese writing into one common writing that we are still using today;
2. Qin also changed the system of governance from one of feudal lords to one of ‘provincial government all reporting to the central government’ system.  This is the same effective method that all subsequent leaders including the current Communist Party, use to govern China;
3. Qin ’sinicised’ or ‘made Chinese’ the non-chinese people from southern China. People from the provinces of Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian, An Hui, Jiangxi and Zhejiang (present day Shanghai) are now all part of the Chinese culture. Imagine if this did not happen, how can we have the World Expo 2010 at Shanghai now?  No wonder some said the Shanghai Expo is made possible because of Qin!
4. Qin brought together talents from all over China to carry out many reforms in systems including weight and measure, road, drainage, building and money.  These things are still effectively in use today.
5. Most importantly, Qin worked very hard. In fact he worked too hard and eventually died of overwork at the age of 50 in year 220 BC.  How many of our leaders and managers today work as hard as him?

This is largely so because Qin Shi Huang unified the number of warring states of China who have been fighting for 800 years.   As we know, history is written by politicians typically paint a lousier picture of their predecessor so as to show people how good they the successors were.

We can definitely learn a lot from his leadership strategies because of this 1 thing: Anyone can conquer lands and unite them with military might, but few can lay down a unified system of governance that is so long lasting until today.  Just like in management, anyone can be promoted to be a manager, but few can establish lasting people strategies that win for the company for a long time.  These are the facts:

1. Qin simplified the Chinese writing into one common writing that we are still using today;

2. Qin also changed the system of governance from one of feudal lords to one of ‘provincial government all reporting to the central government’ system.  This is the same effective method that all subsequent leaders including the current Communist Party, use to govern China;

3. Qin ’sinicised’ or ‘made Chinese’ the non-chinese people from southern China. People from the provinces of Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian, An Hui, Jiangxi and Zhejiang (present day Shanghai) are now all part of the Chinese culture.

4. Qin brought together talents from all over China to carry out many reforms in systems including weight and measure, road, drainage, building and money.  These things are still effectively in use today.

Enough of the history; I’m heading back to plan for my World Expo trip! Haha…

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