First, I think you should have run sed s/strongman/manager/g.
Second, when I do either I see mostly contradictions. The manager, has a manager and so on until you get to the CEO (usually). And the CEO is held accountable by a board and/or shareholders. And the board has to follow (democratically formed) laws and can be held accountable and has a reputation to defend with their name. Also each manager has to compete with other managers for the trust of their subordinates since they can more or less easily switch to other managers or companies.
There is no such correspondence in a dictatorship. Good luck switching the bureaucrat assigned to your city or switching countries (besides the immense cost involved).
The most important quality of a democracy is that you can get rid of a bad government without blood shed. Without that mostly bad things will happen.
Mistakes happen inside democracies and outside but in a strongman fantasy they will most likely last longer and get more amplification.
Had a coworker one time who used to say. "Don't worry, when the manager goes home, he has a manager too, his wife"