Mozi and Han Feizi: Leadership Lessons on Merit, Rules and Incentives

Who were Mozi and Han Fei?

Mozi (Mo Di) was an early Chinese philosopher whose followers formed the Mohist school. His dates are uncertain: Britannica gives about 470 to about 391 BCE, both with question marks, and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP) says he flourished around 430 BCE. The SEP suggests he may have begun as a craftsman, perhaps a carpenter. The book called Mozi is a collection of anonymous writings by his school, which the SEP dates from the 5th to the 3rd century BCE.

Han Fei lived later; Britannica gives his dates as about 280 to 233 BCE. The SEP describes him as a member of the ruling family of the state of Han who was, by tradition, killed in the custody of the king of Qin. He is usually called a 'Legalist', but the SEP notes that the Chinese label fajia was coined later by the historian Sima Tan and calls the English 'Legalism' a popular but inaccurate name: the key word, fa, means standards, models and methods as much as law.

The two disagreed sharply. Han Fei dismissed the Mohists' talk of impartial love as useless for governing his age. But both attacked the same enemy: organisations run by birth, closeness and flattery. That shared enemy is what makes them useful to managers today.

What did Mozi teach about promoting people on merit?

Mozi's chapters on promoting the worthy (Shang xian) start from a practical puzzle: every ruler wants a well-run state, so why do so many get disorder? His answer is that they promote relatives, the rich and the good-looking instead of the able. A central line, in the original Chinese, is: "故官無常貴，而民無終賤。有能則舉之，無能則下之。" In our own English (a Bodhih rendering, not a translation): No office holder stays high for ever and no ordinary person stays low for ever. The able are raised up; those without ability are moved down.

He also gives an order for finding merit: hear what people say, follow what they actually do, examine what they can do, and only then appoint with care. In a modern team that means writing the role standard before you see the candidates, gathering dated evidence of results, and naming your own closeness to each person before you score them.

If you want a baseline for how your organisation handles talent decisions, an assessment such as AssessAll's Strategic Workforce & Talent Planning can show where you stand before and after a few months of practice.

What did Han Fei mean by clear rules?

Han Fei's chapter on having standards (You du) contains two lines that sum up his idea of fairness: "法不阿貴，繩不撓曲。" (Bodhih rendering: The standard does not bow to rank, just as the builder's line does not bend around a crooked board.) And: "刑過不避大臣，賞善不遺匹夫。" (Bodhih rendering: Penalties for wrongdoing do not skip the senior ministers; rewards for good work do not pass over the ordinary person.)

Elsewhere he insists that rules must be written down where everyone can see them, and kept single and stable so people can know them. For a manager the test is simple. For each rule your team really follows, ask four questions: is it written where everyone can see it, does it apply to the senior and the junior alike, is there only one version, and does everyone know who owns it? A rule that fails the second test is not a rule; it is a tax on people without friends in high places.

• Write the real rules, not the handbook's, one sentence each.
• Apply each to everyone, or drop it for everyone.
• Publish them on one page with an owner and a way to challenge them.
• Hold the first senior person to the rule, privately and fairly.

What is 'names and results', and how does it work at work?

Han Fei's method, often called xing ming (the SEP translates it as 'performance and title'), compares what a person said they would do with what they actually did. In his chapter on the two handles he puts it this way: "功當其事，事當其言，則賞" (Bodhih rendering: When the result matches the task, and the task matches what was promised, reward it.)

Han Fei's ruler did this in secret, and punished harshly. A modern leader does it in the open, with the person who made the promise, and looks at the system first. Write each commitment down in the meeting with an owner, a date and what 'done' means. Check it when it falls due. Then read the match rate for a team as a signal: low rates usually mean overcommitment under pressure, an unclear standard or a dependency on another team that never agreed.

Mozi, in James Legge's 1895 English, offers a gentler image for the same idea: words and actions that "that their words and actions will correspond like the parts of a token, every word being carried into effect".

What are Han Fei's 'two handles', and what do they say about KPIs?

Han Fei says a wise ruler guides people with two handles, reward and penalty: "明主之所導制其臣者，二柄而已矣。" (Bodhih rendering: A clear-sighted ruler guides and controls ministers with two handles, and nothing more.) His worry is who holds them. If favourites control rewards and penalties, people court the favourites instead of doing the work.

He also saw that measurement changes behaviour: "上用目，則下飾觀；上用耳，則下飾聲；上用慮，則下繁辭。" (Bodhih rendering: If the leader judges by what they see, people decorate appearances. If by what they hear, people polish their words. If by their own reasoning, people multiply their arguments.) Today the idea is often credited to the economist Charles Goodhart: once a measure becomes the target people are rewarded on, it stops measuring what it used to.

The practical response is an incentive check before any target or bonus launches: write the behaviour you want, ask the people measured how the target could be gamed, score the gaming risk and pair the target with a measure that catches the gaming.

What does Mozi's 'universal love' mean for silos?

Mozi's three chapters on universal love (Jian ai) are the only part of the book with a public-domain English translation, by James Legge. Mozi traces disorder to people caring only for their own family, team or state, and his remedy is to regard "another’s family as one’s own : another’s person as one’s own."

Legge's word 'love' is closer to practical care: counting other people's interests when you decide. At work that means writing a partner team's top priority in their words before you plan, sharing good methods instead of hoarding them, and agreeing one published rule for any resource teams fight over, scored the same way for everyone.

Mozi also noticed how strongly people copy leaders. Of courtiers who changed their dress and diet to please their rulers, he says: "The sovereign liked it, and therefore the ministers did it." What a leader visibly enjoys becomes a target, whether or not anyone meant it to.

How do you cut waste the Mohist way?

Mozi's chapters on moderation in use (Jie yong) test every expense by whether it adds use. His rule, in the original: "凡足以奉給民用諸，加費不加民利則止。" (Bodhih rendering: Provide whatever meets people's real needs. Where more spending adds no benefit to people, stop.)

Run it monthly. List meetings, reports, tools, approval steps and anything that exists to look good. Ask the people who receive each one whether they use it. Mark it use or display, then keep, cut, shrink or run a test removal for a month. Never cut what protects people's safety, wellbeing, rest or dignity: Mozi's critics argued that he took frugality too far, and that is a warning worth keeping.

Where do Mozi and Han Fei go wrong, and how do you balance them?

Taken alone, each lens fails in a predictable way. Han Fei's advice, written for absolute rulers, slides into surveillance, fear and rules applied without care. Mozi's can slide into austerity that starves people, conformity (his doctrine of 'identifying upward' read as 'agree with the boss') and good intentions that nobody checks.

Used together they correct each other: Han Fei supplies the published rules and honest checks that keep care from becoming favouritism, and Mozi supplies the care and merit that keep rules from becoming fear. Han Fei also warns that the system must keep changing: "世異則事異" (Bodhih rendering: When the times change, the work changes.)

How can you start this week?

Start with three small habits. Each morning, pick one task and write one line on what done well looks like. When a promise falls due, ask whether what was said matched what was done. Each evening, write one merit note: the name of someone whose work you saw, and how you credited it.

Then, over the following weeks, write standards for your key roles, run the next promotion on a written standard and evidence, publish your team's real rules on one page, and map every target your team works under. To turn the practice into goals with review dates, a structured plan such as a Jobulary development plan keeps it going. If you want the whole system ready to use, Bodhih Training's Merit, Rules and Systems: Mozi and Han Feizi kit includes the e-book, the Merit and Rules Audit Workbook, fillable forms, a 52-card deck and a 12-week programme calendar.