Authoritarian managers
There have been two long term trends in management practice over the last hundred years. The first was scientific management, and the second was the humanistic movement.
Authoritarian management was the norm and not questioned until the turn of the 19th century when human rights in general started to emerge as a movement. For a long while employees had no legal rights so managers could do as they pleased. About a hundred years ago the scientific management era began in an environment of authoritarianism. Work processes were studied scientifically and workers made to conform to "industrial reengineering." People were sacrificed in the name of productivity as assembly line workers were reduced to repetitive standardization. This was prior to the age of the knowledge worker.
Many people still work under authoritarian managers. However, as a movement it is dying because:
1) employees have many and varied legal rights
2) people-centered management is more effective
3) studies show closely supervised people do less work