Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun

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Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun

By Wess Roberts, Ph.D.:

A Book Report

By

John Srutowski

Submitted to Instructor Jean Rumbaugh

September 11th, 2011

HA511 Leadership and Management in Healthcare Systems

File name: Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun

ABSTRACT

In his book, Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun, Wess Roberts provides a voice for Attila the Hun to speak to modern students of leadership in a compilation of traits required for effective leadership. While informative and entertaining, Roberts’ work has been criticized as historically inaccurate or unverifiable, or as a mere metaphor for Roberts’ own views. Moreover, leadership trait analysis as a subset of leadership study has significant limitations, including its lack of universality, missing dynamic between leader and follower, and lack of situational context.

WHY ATTILA?

Roberts’ Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun,is remarkable more for what it does not contain than for what it does. It does not contain much analysis; it does not relate Attila to modern theories on leadership; it does not speak to Attila’s practices in business terms. What is does contain is merely a synopsis of Attila’s life in the context of his world, his accomplishments,and Roberts’ interpretation of Attila’s views on leadership traits. Roberts acknowledges the dubious nature of his choice of subject, and defends it; leadership aligns disparate followers to common goals—it is not a system or model in and of itself, but the “evaluation of leadership principles is an effective base upon which to build other skills” as “no system or model… can anticipate the circumstances, conditions and situations in which the leader must influence the actions of others” (Roberts, 1987).Roberts’ premise is that Attila, savagery removed, metaphorically offers a leadership role model as good as any other,as Attila accomplished, through guile, wit and the understanding of human nature, the forging of a nation from loosely-bound, warring, clannish and barbaric nomadic tribes, aligning them to common goalsby recognizing their strengths and weaknesses, decimating his competition, and utilizing his fearsome reputation as a public-relations weapon to cause his enemies to lay down arms before the battle was even begun.

ATTILA ON LEADERSHIP

Attila recognized leaders must continually develop through study, insight and trial. Technical skill was sufficient for warriors, but not enough for chieftains. Chieftains must have possessed “the following essential qualities, which through experience become mastered skills” (Roberts, 1987):

LOYALTY—Disloyalty is participating in or encouraging actions running counter to the interests of the tribe, though disagreement is not disloyalty. If attitudes and actions of the disloyal cannot be changed, the disloyal must be removed.

COURAGE—Arduous tasks must be faced with fearlessness. “The role of chieftain has inherent periods of loneliness, despair, ridicule, and rejection.”

DESIRE—Chieftains must have an inherent commitment to influencing people, processes, and outcomes. “Weak is the chieftain who does not want to be one.”

EMOTIONAL STAMINA—Leaders must have “stamina to recover rapidly from disappointment… without losing… perspective in the face of… difficult circumstances.”

PHYSICAL STAMINA—“A healthy body supports a healthy mind.”

EMPATHY—Chieftains must develop “an appreciation for and an understanding of the values of others, a sensitivity for other cultures, beliefs, and traditions.“ Empathy must not be confused with sympathy.

DECISIVENESS—After taking into account all facts, chieftains must decide to act (or not).“Vacillation and procrastination confuse and discourage subordinates, peers and superiors and serve the enemy well.”

ANTICIPATION—“Learning by observation and through instincts sharpened by tested experience, our chieftains must anticipate thoughts, actions and consequences.” It bears a level of risk, but must not be shunned in favor of personal security.

TIMING—“Essential to all acts of leadership…, timing of recommendations and actions” is learned through experience, and failure. “Knowing whom you are dealing with, their motives, characters, priorities and ambitions are critical elements even when seeking approval of the simplest recommendations.”

COMPETITIVENESS—This desire to win is inherent in battle, in negotiation, and in internal strife. One cannot win all the time, but must win the important contests.

SELF-CONFIDENCE—Subordinates, peers and superiors see a lack of self-confidence as a sign duties are beyond a leader’s capabilities. “They become… weak…and useless chieftains.”

ACCOUNTABILITY—Learn to account for personal actions and for those of subordinates, both in achievement and failure “no matter how glorious or grave the consequences.”

RESPONSIBILITY—“No king, chieftain or subordinate leader should ever be allowed to serve who will not accept full responsibility for his actions.”

CREDIBILITY—Words and actions must be believable to “friend and foe.” “[Chieftains] must be trusted to have the intelligence and integrity to provide correct information…” lest they lose influence.

TENACITY—“The strong persist and pursue through discouragement, deception and even personal abandonment. Pertinacity is often the key to achieving difficult assignments or meeting challenging goals.”

DEPENDABILITY—Chieftains must carry out their duties without the need for supervision, with pride for the trust placed in them from those above and below.

STEWARDSHIP—This caretaker quality encourages confidence, trust and loyalty. Subordinates must not be abused, but guided, developed and rewarded, with punishment a last resort. “Without subordinates, there can be no leaders. Leadersare, therefore, caretakers of the interests and well-being of those and the purposes they serve.”

CRITICAL ANLYSIS:

HISTORICAL INSIGHTOR METAPHORICAL MOUTHPIECE?

Roberts’ work has been praised for its historical insight (Kelley, 2009), or denounced as bad metaphor for Roberts’ own views on leadership (Magill Book Reviews, 2009). Indeed, the entire genre of leadership biographies within the leadership literature has been disparagingly categorized as “the troubadour tradition…, the self-serving and account-settling memoirs of former CEOs and politicians. Despite its popularity, the troubadour tradition is a vast collection of opinions with very little supporting evidence; it is entertaining but unreliable” (Hogan & Kaiser, 2005). Hogan and Kaiser (2005) contrast the troubadour tradition to the academic tradition, empirically grounded, but also disparaged as “decontextualized facts,” ignoring the importance of personality, and only viewing leaders as “standing out in a crowd” or “occupying a senior position….” But if set aside, all these equally valid issues leave Roberts’ work exposed to a far more general analysis of its validity for, if nothing else, Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun may be viewed as a compilation of leadership traits, whether or not they reflect theactual traits of Attila, or represent the metaphorical musings of Roberts glibly packaged as historical quotes.

THE CASE FOR TRAIT ANALYSIS

Roberts is not the only author to seize upon the notion that Attila, in the proper modern context, represents a collection of traits that is worthy of scrutiny. Kennedy (1996) goes so far as to say, “These are the actions of a great leader…. Like the description of Attila, leadership is not a concept that is easily defined by a set of rules. Yet there do seem to be some common denominators that all great leaders seem to have in common.” Indeed, the traits approach is the largest area of leadership study as, “Personality traits are considered especially relevant to successful leadership and those highlighted as the most pertinent include energy levels and stress tolerance, self-confidence,internal control orientation, emotional maturity and integrity” (Yukl, 2001). These traits could have come straight from Attila himself, and may represent Kennedy’s common denominators of great leaders;

The great Victorian era historian Thomas Carlyle commented that, ‘the history of the world was the biography of great men’ (Carlyle, 1907, p. 18). This ‘great man’ hypothesis—that history is shaped by the forces of extraordinary leadership— gave rise to the trait theory of leadership. Like the great man theory, trait theory assumed that leadership depended on the personal qualities of the leader, but unlike the great man theory, it did not necessarily assume that leadership resided solely within the grasp of a few heroic men. (Judge, Bono, Ilies, & Gerhardt,2002)

This notion that leaders possess definable traits that separate them from non-leaders is one of its strengths as, “People have a need to see their leaders as gifted people, and the trait approach fulfills that need” (Northouse, 2010). Indeed, Kirkpatrick and Locke (1991) state emphatically, “…leadersarenot likeother people.Leaders… need to havethe ‘right stuff" and this stuff is notequallypresent in all people. [I]t takes aspecialkindof person…. [T]he individualdoesmatter.”

SHORTCOMINGS OF TRAIT ANALYSIS

Despite attempts to define a common set of leadership traits, “numerous studies… [have] failed to identify a set of traits common to all leaders” (Conger, 1998).

Also, trait analysis fails to take into account two other important dynamics of leadership: followers and the situation. As Bass (1990) states, “[trait] theorists did not acknowledge the extent to which leaders and followers have interactive effects by determining which qualities of followers are of consequence in a situation.”Indeed, trait approach, deemed “simplistic” by Conger (1998), has given way to the study of “leadership as a set of role behaviors by individuals in the context of the group…” engaged in a “power relationship” with their followers. “Without the followers’ perceptions, acceptance, and attributions [of leadership power], the phenomenon [of leadership] simply would not exist” (Conger, 1998).

RELEVENCE TO THE HEALTHCARE LEADER

While interesting, trait analysis cannot be considered relevant to the modern healthcare leader because it does not take into account the complex relationship between the leader and a highly-educated and technically-skilled set of followers. Nor does it give specific directions for adapting leadership skills to a diverse set of followers in the rapidly-shifting healthcare environment.

Also, while it may be acknowledged that leaders possess definable traits, and that trait analysis is a worthy area of study, there is no universality to those traits—healthcare leaders come in all shapes and sizes, armed with a personal set of strengths, but cognizant of their weaknesses.

The utility of trait analysis, therefore, to the healthcare leader may be as a starting point for more self-analysis, as Roberts says, a “base,” or as a revelatory source of feedback from followers.

RECOMMENDATIONS TO MAKE THE BOOK BETTER

Written entirely from the perspective of Attila, it would have been informative to read the perspective of his followers. Also, Roberts could have strengthened the historical references to prevent criticism on the basis of historical inaccuracy.

SUMMARY

This book should not be considered required study for the healthcare leader but, taken as a work of historical fiction, does raise interesting questions regarding the nature of leadership to coalesce disparate tribes to a common purpose, as the modern healthcare organization might be described. At the very least, it does deliver an entertaining premise, though its lack of prescriptive actions relative to follower and situation limit its practicality.

REFERENCES

Bass, B. (1990). Bass & Stogdill’s Handbook of leadership: Theory, research, and managerial applications, 3rd ed. New York, NY: The Free Press. Retrieved September 10th, 2011 from

Conger, J., Kanungo, R. (1998). Charismatic leadership in organizations.Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc. Retrieved September 10th, 2011 from Google Books Result

Hogan, R., Kaiser, R. (2005). What We Know About Leadership. Review of General Psychology, 2005, Vol. 9, No.2, 169-180. Retrieved September 10th, 2011 from

Judge, T., Bono, J., Ilies, R., & Gerhardt, M. (2002). Personality and Leadership: A Qualitative and Quantitative Review.Journal of Applied Psychology, 2002, Vol. 87, No. 4, 765-780. Retrieved September 10th, 2011 from

Kelley, L. (2009). “Leadership secrets of Attila the Hun,” by Wess Roberts. Management Book Reviews. Retrieved September 10th, 2011 from

Kennedy, A. (1996). Attila the Hun: Leadership as a Change Agent. Hospital Materiel ManagementQuarterly, 1996, 17, 3. Retrieved September 10th, 2011 from

Kirkpatrick, S., Locke, E. (1991). Leadership: Do Traits Matter? Academy of Management Executive, 1991, Vol. 5, No. 2. Retrieved September 10th, 2011 from

Magill Book Reviews.(2005). Roberts, W. Leadership secrets of Attila the Hun. Salem Press. (eNotes.com. 2006). Retrieved September 10th, 2011 from

Northouse, P. G. (2010). Leadership: Theory and practice (5th ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications.

Roberts, W. (1987). Leadership secrets ofAttila the Hun.New York, NY: Warner Books, Inc.

Yukl, G. (2001). Leadership in organizations. Prentice Hall. [Review of the book from What Leaders Read] Retrieved September 10th, 2011 from