Fear and Affection Dual Leadership

"“Is that what I pay you so much for?” —Azcárraga complained—. “So you can wear the badge on your balls?” A terrifying silence fell. El Tigre had roared. But the employee managed to mumble a reply. Bringing his hand to his throat, he exclaimed: “No, sir, I keep those here.” Azcárraga burst into a tremendous laugh, one of those broad and sonorous guffaws of his that were characteristic of him. Nervous, his employees began to chuckle under their breath. When the elevator reached his floor, Azcárraga took off his Rolex and gave it to the worker. “You deserve it, you bastard,” he said, and walked out through the doors."

"Azcárraga enjoyed a strong presence among lower-ranking workers; following his father’s example, he visited the San Ángel studios every month to peek in on how the latest telenovela was going and to lift morale. His arrival seemed to make the earth tremble; conversations would abruptly stop. But then, surrounded by a crowd, the boss would set about asking about their families, congratulating the actresses on their marriages, lamenting that a relative was ill, or cracking jokes with the older employees. Almost everyone was proud that El Tigre was their boss."

"It has not been clearly determined whether Azcárraga Vidaurreta used the blacklist directly or threatened to use it, and how many of his high-ranking executives, anticipating his wishes, took part in this practice. But in any company run by an autocrat, executives tend to try to reinforce their own sense of power by taking a hard line with their subordinates, emulating certain traits of their boss’s character. This was fully borne out with Emilio Jr. to the point that one day he came to be more feared than his father, and Don Emilio, by contrast, would be remembered as a much gentler boss than he actually was."