First of all, the only time there is no negotiation is if you don't have a choice.
Will the company fold if you leave it?
I have personally been in this situation and even then I have negotiated because the owners were only able to put so much money and above that they would prefer to just cut their losses and dissolve the company.
> If you can leave the next day there's no much room for the employer to negotiate anything.
No, you just decided to give them your terms and allow the company to only approve or deny them. You take away their ability to negotiate with you in response to your demands but you did not take their ability to make their own decision. You did not dictate anything.
You would dictate if you had actual power over the company.
You are not really a dictator if they can refuse your offer, are you?
I'm just saying that statement "everything is a negotiation" is not true. Because if you refuse to participate in any bargaining then there's no negotiation. Just a statement (from one side) and decision (from the other).
I see you are mostly opposed to the word dictate because you understand it as employee dictating what company will do. And he's obviously not capable of that.
The word dictate used by OP was about dictating the terms of decision they have to make, not dictating what the decision should be.
"to issue as an order; to impose, pronounce, or specify authoritatively"
If you don't have authority over the company you can still think you are dictating, but that's not how the company views it.
The company view is "are you too much of a problem for the benefit of keeping you?" not "John said it so we must do it because he has authority around here".
There is a bit of nuance here. As someone else mentioned, he is not saying he is literally dictating what decision the employer must make, he is dictating his own terms.
In fact, you conveniently left out a definition that doesn't fit your argument from the pages you linked:
> to influence something or make it necessary
Example (from the Cambridge URL that you linked): "He shouldn't be allowed to dictate all the terms and conditions - it's supposed to be a democratic decision."
That's exactly what OP is doing. Dictating the terms and conditions. Influencing what "must be done". Giving them an ultimatum, by dictating his conditions. He is "dictating" in this case, because he does have total authority on his own actions. If they do not cede, he will leave.
It's kind of a semantic argument, and moot at that, but even the resources you linked support OP's usage of the word dictate.
By that logic, does the concept of dictator even exist? Even under threat of torture and death you can refuse to do or say whatever is being demanded of you - and if you can be refused then are you really a dictator?
Will the company fold if you leave it?
I have personally been in this situation and even then I have negotiated because the owners were only able to put so much money and above that they would prefer to just cut their losses and dissolve the company.
> If you can leave the next day there's no much room for the employer to negotiate anything.
No, you just decided to give them your terms and allow the company to only approve or deny them. You take away their ability to negotiate with you in response to your demands but you did not take their ability to make their own decision. You did not dictate anything.
You would dictate if you had actual power over the company.
You are not really a dictator if they can refuse your offer, are you?