Comparison Between HAN FEI And Makiyavery's Leadership Skill Theories

Han Fei is a renowned representative of school of law thought in pre-Qin period of china and Machiavelli is a famous political thinker in Italian Renaissance. In spite of living in different times, areas and cultural background, in general, they both put forward their own theory of leadership skill in the background of serious situation of internal disturbance and foreign aggression that their countries were suffering and in the strong hope of a powerful nation, so their theories had surprising resemblance but at the same time with their own characteristics. The thoughts of Han Fei and Machiavelli were mainly reflected in the books of <Han Feizi>and<The Prince >. After firstly studying the cultural background, thoughts and academic origin of Han Fei's and Machiavelli's leadership skill theories, and on the basis of analyzing their different theory of human nature, nation view, power view, law view and political moral concept, this paper adopts the methods of literature search and the comparison studies to analyze these two books and carries on a deep analysis of similarities and dissimilarities of these two leadership skill. Han Fei advocated the theory that liking or pursuing benefits and disgusting or avoiding harmful things were physiological instinct of human nature, therefore one's actions was always impelled by self-interest of pursuing benefits. Machiavelli's advocated the theory that human beings were essentially selfish and the basic aim of human's secular life was to pursue wealth, power and reputation, so all politics were only struggles caused by conflict of interests. On the basis of their theories, they put forwards the views respectively that emperor must grasp human's character to lead and govern the country. Of course during the process of leading, the emperor must grip various kinds of smart or even unscrupulous govern and controls skills to ensure his stable status and enhance the country's safety. What is worthwhile to note is that they have different point of emphasis. Han Fei always put"Law"in first place in his lead skill theory, he thought that the law which was the standard to judge right or wrong, good or evil should be formulated and made known to public. This law should become the objective standard to measure and regulate people's action. While Machiavelli emphasized the role of troop, he thought that the country, no matter it was a hereditary or mix monarch, must have its own well-equipped troops. Although to a certain extent, the mercenary, reinforcements and mix army could also play the role of protecting the country, it was not as good as its own army. At the same time, the thoughts of severe sentence principle, generous reward and heavy fine and be fair of rewards and penalties were fully reflected in both their theories. Both Han Fei and Machiavelli advocated the thought of autocratic monarchy and the concept that interests of emperor and country were superior, which had a deep influence to later times. Especially the leadership skill theory, which had rich political leadership skill and business management art, had a significant meaning to modern management.