Leadership Failure at Baidu: When Fear Replaces Emotional Intelligence | Dale Carnegie Tokyo

When Baidu’s Vice President of Public Relations, Ms. Qu Jing, posted a video boasting about her “results-only” leadership style, she ignited a social media firestorm — and ended her own career.
Her message? “I can make you jobless in this industry.”
Her leadership legacy? A case study in how low emotional intelligence (EQ) can destroy credibility, engagement, and brand reputation overnight.

Baidu, a $4.67 billion quarterly revenue AI and internet powerhouse, employs nearly 40,000 people worldwide. Yet, one executive’s behavior revealed a deeper issue — a corporate culture that appeared to tolerate arrogance and fear-based management.
Ms. Qu’s tone-deaf remarks — from bragging that she didn’t care about staff families to dismissing empathy as weakness — exposed a culture that values outcomes over integrity. Within days, she was forced to apologise and subsequently disappeared from her role.

In Dale Carnegie terms, this was a complete violation of the first rule of leadership: “Never criticize, condemn, or complain.”
Fear might drive compliance temporarily, but it kills creativity, trust, and loyalty.
True leaders don’t dominate—they inspire, listen, and align. Ms. Qu confused authority with influence and confused visibility with credibility. The result was predictable: reputational damage for both herself and her company.

While her behavior was extreme, the underlying assumption is common:
many leaders subconsciously believe their staff share their same motivations—career ambition, long hours, and personal sacrifice.
In reality, each team member has their own values, goals, and life stage priorities.
The job of leadership is not to project our goals onto others but to connect organizational purpose with personal meaning.

Engaged teams emerge when leaders:

• Have genuine conversations — informal, consistent, and non-judgmental.

• Ask, don’t assume — learn what motivates each person now, not years ago.

• Live the company’s values — don’t just frame them on a wall.
  At Dale Carnegie Tokyo, we often say:

“Values must be visible in behavior, not just visible in posters.”

Leaders must continuously revisit their teams’ evolving priorities — family, health, career, autonomy — and adapt how they lead to maintain trust and retention.

Before we dismiss Baidu as an outlier, let’s reflect.
Do we truly “walk the talk” on our company’s values?
At our firm, our hierarchy of values is clear:
1. Your health. 2. Your family’s health. 3. The company’s health.
It’s not a slogan — it’s a practice. Leadership integrity means demonstrating it daily.

• Fear can achieve compliance, but not commitment.

• Emotional intelligence is the foundation of sustainable leadership.

• Real communication builds connection; assumptions breed alienation.

• Culture is not what you claim — it’s what you live.

Request a Free Consultation to learn how Dale Carnegie Tokyo helps executives lead with empathy, clarity, and consistency — the hallmarks of trusted leadership in Japan.

For over 100 years worldwide and 60 years in Tokyo, Dale Carnegie Training has developed leaders who inspire engagement, integrity, and growth through proven human relations principles.