THis sounds a bit like a conversation I had with my last departmental manager before I left the company.
I'd refused to do certain shifts with, as I argued, good reason. The conversation went round and round with him saying that if I refused, 'there would be consequences'. I asked what would be the consequences - ? He kept asking was I refusing to do the particular shifts - ? and I kept asking what would the consequences be - ?

This went round and round for ten minutes or so, getting nowhere and I never found out what the consequences would have been as I handed my notice in two days later - !
I had a boss who started off when he arrived by interviewing everyone for their own jobs.
Some time later he called me into the office and made it clear that he wanted the job done his way without actually saying so.
"Well, you're the boss you can have the job done however you want"
"Oh, no no, it's your decision"
And then he went back to making it plain how he wanted it done, so I carried on doing it my way. I don't mind being responsible for my own decisions, but I'm b*ggered if I'll be the scapegoat for his.
At one time he summoned everyone into the conference room. It was a quick meeting, he just said "It's been noticed who goes home at 5pm. Anyone who doesn't work until at least 7pm will go to the top of the redundancy list". There were just two going home at 5pm, me and a guy who was a couple of months from retiring. I worked until 1am and then came back in at 7am once, but not for someone like him.
He was a ladder climber who only stopped on a rung long enough to reach the next one, so he was gone long before me. The rumour was that he came to ours to be closer to his fiance, and that he'd been offered a seat on the board at her family's shoe factory after they were married.