Review of "Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun," by Wess Roberts

Review of

Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun, by Wess Roberts ISBN 0446391069

Five out of five stars

 To date, I have read many books on management that include gimmicks in their presentation. The author of this one uses one of the most unusual tactics that is surprisingly effective. Even the person least acquainted with history has most likely heard of Attila the Hun, historically known as “the scourge of God.” To use someone that murdered rivals and ordered the slaughter of all the inhabitants of towns and cities as a role model seems to be odd and inappropriate.

 However, as Roberts explains, Attila was not really a barbarian, but a well educated student of the Roman Empire. Furthermore, it takes intelligence and a great deal of ability to organize if you are going to fuse a set of disparate nomadic tribes into a powerful fighting force able to successfully engage the Roman forces in open combat. The Roman leaders had many years of experience in warfare against outside forces and rarely tasted defeat. Therefore, Attila’s leadership in ruling the Huns is very impressive and one can apply his leadership talents without having heads rolling about.

 Each chapter is generally structured into two parts: a lead-in that is some history of the life of Attila and an issue he faced followed by a “personal statement” from Attila explaining the management tactic that he applied to deal with the issue. Even though the modern manager cannot order the death of rivals for power within the company or of the competition, what you read in this book is a set of tactics that can still be used.