Sunday 21 October 2012

Adolf Hitler - Hero labelled As Villain



Can you name a person who has had a tremendous impact on you as a leader? Maybe some one who has been a mentor to you? Why and how did this person impact your life?

The world has most of the excellent super humans with leadership values. One might wonder how a leadership values been determined. If an organization had been chosen to carry out the task as world organization to determine leadership values, the next question arises. Who gives them the rights to determine the values?

Most of us had one thing in our mind; superheroes such as Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Theresa or even Tun Dr Mahathir have leadership values. But less that they knew that each and everyone of us have leadership values in ourselves. We have the perception as some might say leaders are born, which for me is such an illogical say. When the right time and situation occur, the true leadership value will arise within us. In Malaysia, we have the attitude not to lead a team on any occasion; we will be busy pushing the leadership task to other subordinate. The reason for such behavior is common, to avoid responsibility. As we knew, with great power, comes great responsibility. That say is not only for Peter Parker a.k.a Spiderman, but for each and every human being on this earth. We human being had the thought that only leader have leadership value. If we have the courage to lead a team, the question of leadership comes into our picture. How to lead a team with a leadership value?  How to define leadership value? Do we really know that there are positive value and negative value? How does we define the values?

One might have negative or positive values. Our perspective on the value differs within ourselves. A killer might be seen as a negative person, but his motive of defending a child rapist may determine him as a positive valued person. So does the leadership value; there are positive and negative leadership values. The values differ with the team lead by the leader. The motive of the team, will be determining the value taken on leading the team. As human being, mainly in Malaysia a team must be lead with positive values. That’s the norm of Malaysians as been mentioned in Malaysian Constitution.

As for me, values from a world’s most negative valued personalities have their skilled leadership valued that been forgotten and not been recognized. Such characters such as Adolf Hitler, Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein have the leadership values in them. If an individual could be insane enough to adapt the positive values in such negative characteristic idols, one might be leading a successful organization. As for me, my favorite mentor / idol would be Adolf Hitler. A guy who had impressed me with his villain attitude, yet build such a powerful army with his great leadership. Many might see him as the most terrible human being ever lived, but less does realize how a great leader was born.

A simple guy, who had an ambition to become an artist were meant to change the world upside down. World War II was the stage for him to perform his mega leadership play. Never been thought such an ordinary guy could make such impact on the world. A guy, who had even been declared unfit for the army, had taken the world on his hand.

Before I conclude how Adolf Hitler had become my mentor, a brief introduction about him will give a clear picture of him. Hitler was born in an Inn in the Austrian-Hungary border as the fourth of six children to Alois Hitler and Klara Pölzl.As for education, Hitler had joined a Catholic school, even joined the church choir and thought of being a priest when he grew up. He had always wanted to become an artiste. His father had wishes for him to join a technical school, but Hitler was more interested in the arts. This led to many arguments, bitterness and rebellion on Hitler’s part. As a result, Hitler became pro-Germany as a statement of rebellion because his father served the Austrian government.

At age 28, he was rejected by the Vienna School of Fine Arts and then the architectural school, making fulfilling his dreams of becoming an artist to be physically impossible.
As his ambition were not about to be fulfilled, Hitler’s life path had been deployed. The next stage of his life was the key factor which had ended up in World War II. Being rejected of Vienna School of Fine Arts, Hitler had developed anti-Semitism in Vienna, being influenced by the culture and the beliefs in a large way which would later bring about the horror of the Holocaust. Adolf Hitler was a man who truly loved his country. During the World War I. he truly became a patriot of Germany. Hitler had served Germany on World War I and been honored twice for bravery. Yet he were never been promoted as the superior felt he had less leadership value in him.

As been mentioned earlier, leadership value are not always can be seen by others. Sometimes the real value lies deep within them. Adolf Hitler had a rising era when His rise to power came when he participated in politics after World War I. He was inserted as a spy into the German Worker’s Party (DAP), but he was impressed with the ideology of the founder Anton Drexler. The founder, who was impressed with Hitler’s oratory skills, hired him as a Party member
Before long, he seized full control of the Party as the members of the Party realized that they couldn’t do without him because of his effectiveness in speaking to large crowds. He became the Führer of the National Socialist German Workers' Party in 1921.

He staged an unsuccessful coup known as the Beer Hall Putsch where he tried to declare a new government by demand support from the local military at gunpoint. The police managed to stop his attempt and he almost committed suicide after running from them. Hitler was then given unlimited time to defend himself in public. Because he was such a good speaker, he managed to rouse more national sympathy for his cause and he became more popular than ever. He ended up only serving a short time in jail.

His breakthrough came during the Great Depression, where he managed to rouse the national’s bitterness for having the pay for the cost of the war in World War I. Through a series of political plays, he was appointed Chancellor by the government in January 1933.
As Chancellor, he further secured additional power by closing down opposition parties and securing unlimited rights for himself.

Having secured supreme political power, Hitler went on to gain public support by convincing most Germans he was their savior from the economic Depression, the Versailles treaty, communism and more.

Eventually, his greed and ambition led to the initial invasion of Poland and resulting in the World War II. A war hero had born to show the world how an ordinary man could rise up for a greater destruction of the world.

Each and every one of us has a negative person in ourselves, yet we manage to control our beast for the benefit of our world and society. Some individual have all the capability of a great leader, but failed to establish themselves. On the other hand, some individual has no capabilities yet manage to gain such knowledge by reading and experience. Adolf Hitler had shown me that no matter how hard your life could be, yet when time comes you will rise above the world.

‘Art of a great leadership is saying No, not by saying Yes’ famous saying of Tony Blair, former Britain Prime Minister. Rather that admitting on a negative of ourselves we must say no on it and try changing the negative value into positive. Being a great leader, a lot of criteria must be fulfilled.

Adolf Hitler did much evil during his regime in Nazi Germany. Although I do not share his values, but he did do certain things right as a leader to rally a whole nation. Most of us had never recognized him for the positive value in Hitler. As further studies and research been done on Hitler’s biography, had been noticed that Adolf Hitler have such a number of leadership values that most leaders world wide have.

I had made Adolf Hitler as my idol for his leadership value. As the writing goes by, I will explain few of the value we could trace out on Hitler. The main values we can notice on Hitler are:

1) Public Speaking Talent
As I were about to enter Form 1, I were afraid on public speaking. Standing in front of the crowd makes me nervous. When ever my teacher has a case study to be presented to the class, I will be the last person to be standing at the class. Most of the time I will be sick by the time my turn comes. When my library session arrives, I had a chance to talk about a hero to the class. I came across a book on Adolf Hitler, which were not considered as a hero. That’s the moment I start learning about Adolf Hitler and all his leadership skills. Public speaking is one of the must for a leader to be considered recognized by the team.

Hitler was a captivating public speaker. He would enrapture crowds with his vision and sense of purpose of the nation.

Public speaking is one of the essential skills of a leader. Whether you are able to have followers will really depend on your ability to rally them through inspiration and a hope for a future vision.
You should take time to invest in your ability to speak publicly. Like it or not, public speaking is one of the most common traits of the top leaders in the world and if you can do it well, it will serve you and your team really well.

2) Understanding Human Nature
As a leader, understanding others around us is a must. Never ever as a leader look down on other. Each and everyone have their own perception on a situation. As a leader we must learn on understanding others need and desire. A leader is not a person who shows his ability to others too often. A great leader only be noticeable when situation need him to be.

Adolf Hitler understood human nature very well. He knew how to use human nature to his personal gain and with that knowledge; he rallied the whole nation behind him.

You have to understand the thoughts, inclinations of human nature well if you are to be an effective leader as well. This often means a high level of EQ. Much of human nature can be easily be seen in yourself; especially in your weakness to temptation or any base inclination.
A good leader understands what he is dealing with in other people because he sees it in himself.

From that perspective and understanding, you’re able to lead your followers so much better

3) Constant Influence
Being influence is such a behavior that made me adore Adolf Hitler. He made a whole country stand behind him. As a leader, influencing others is a must criteria. Such value brings the team together to achieve a mission or objective. Adolf Hitler successfully used propaganda to bring the whole nation under his will. Through the constant use of media and communications, he managed to cause a whole nation to think alike to serve his cause.

There’s a lesson for us leaders to be learnt here. People become what they are constantly being exposed to. If you constantly read, watch and listen to positive messages, you’ll naturally become positive. And it works vice versa as well.
We’d like to think that we are thinking independently of our environment, but the truth is that most of us think, act and believe in a certain way because of our environment.

A leader with such leadership value for sure would be able to achieve the objective of any organization. These are few reasons which make me adore Adolf Hitler. As to become a leader out of me, learning and adapting values from a negative character may be though, but it’s something interesting. Some of the most famous quotes of Adolf Hitler had also made a remarkable impact on me.

Few of the quotes of Adolf Hitler are:
1) If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.
2) He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future.
3) Germany will either be a world power or will not be at all.
4) Strength lies not in defense but in attack.
5) The art of leadership... consists in consolidating the attention of the people against a single adversary and taking care that nothing will split up that attention.

As for every human being out there, having a idol of a negative or positive person is not important, but getting the right value from a person that makes us different from others. Who we are can’t be changed, yet improving ourselves to become a better person must be our main objective. 

References
1)      Hitler, Adolf (1942). Baynes, Norman H.. ed. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922 – August 1939. London: Oxford University.
2)      Hanfstaengl, Ernst (1994) [1957]. Hitler: The Missing Years. New York: Arcade..
3)  Overy, Richard (2005). The Dictators: Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia. Penguin Books. 
4)     Evans, Richard J. (1989). In Hitler's Shadow : West German Historians and the ttempt to Escape from the Nazi Past. New York: Pantheon.
5)      William Ury, (2007), The Power Of A Positive No : Bantam Dell
6)      www.wikipedia.com
7)      www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/GERhitler.htm
8)      www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/hitler.html
9)      www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/
10)  www.biography.com/people/adolf-hitler-9340144

Shanmugam A/L Gopalan
Sidang A
DPA 1/2012

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