The Romans would vote for dictators to “get stuff done” sometimes with glorious results... sometimes with disaster.
IIRC (I was very young at the time), Roman Dictators were appointed for a short period of time (a few months) to solve a particular problem. And, until Sulla, they typically gave up their powers afterwards.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Roman_dictators#Key_to_Latin_terms_and_phrases