Adolf Hitler Leadership Effectiveness

ADOLF HITLER

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler, regardless of his wrong doings and the obvious evil that he empowered, was one of the great leaders of our time and changed the way that our society looked at war. The fact that Hitler came from a front-line soldier with no real future in a leadership role to the chancellor of Germany and the commander of a great army shows his great will and ability to meet his goals and to manipulate people to achieve a vision. The reason that I chose Hitler as the subject for this paper was because of the great impact that he had on our world over the last century and also to take a look at just how he could convince not only his nation but other allies to carry out his ill-will towards Russia and the Jews. Whether or not he is viewed as crazy is irrelevant here, his leadership and manipulative skills allowed him to achieve at least some of his sub-goals and very nearly his overall goal of expanding Germany into Russia and exterminating the Jews. When looking at a leadership style or a model to compare Hitler to, there is one word that really stands out in most leadership models that all relate to Hitler: directive. This paper will look at two different models which I believe will show what kind of leader Hitler was and also why I think that he was as successful as he possibly could have been. These two models are Blake and Mouton's Leadership Grid and the contingency model. On Blake and Mouton's Leadership Grid, Hitler should be taken as a "9,1" type leader, the place on the model known as "authority-compliance". This type of leader is said to place heavy emphasis on task and job requirements and only care about people because they are "tools" necessary in getting the job done. The leader is often seen as controlling, demanding, hard-driving, and overpowering (Northouse, 2004: pg 69). The contingency theory looks at not only the leader but the subordinates and then predicts whether or not the leader should be effective in his position given the situation. In Hitler's case, leader-member relations are good, there is a high task structure and high position power. For reference in the analysis section of the paper, leaders who are low on the least-preferred coworker (LPC) scale are those who first worry about finishing the task and then worry about their relationships with people. They gain self-esteem through accomplishing their goals and will only take time to attend to personal matters if the goal or mission has been realized (Northouse, 2004: pg 119).Hitler should be considered a low LPC.

Analysis of Behaviour

When looking at Hitler's behaviour with the goal of analyzing his leadership style and leadership success, it is important to keep in mind that the focus of the paper is to look at how well and in what manner he led. To say that he was a poor leader based on his actions or his extremely unethical goals would be a disservice to the analysis. This section of the paper will be broken down into two sections that will separate the style approach and the contingency theory approach to analyze Hitler's leadership style.

Style Approach (Blake and Mouton's Leadership Grid)

As was stated previously, Adolf Hitler's leadership style when considering the style approach is "authority-compliance". Essentially, Hitler wanted supreme power among his peers and the rest of the world and once his country submitted to him and granted him this supreme power, Hitler took full advantage of his positional power and at that point it was too late for anyone to oppose him. An article that talked about Hitler's leadership style said "Hitler was, first and foremost, determined to command personally. According to his so-called Leader Principle (FÐ"јhrerprinzip), ultimate authority rested with him and extended downward. At each level, the superior was to give the orders, the subordinates to follow them to the letter. In practice the command relationships were more subtle and complex, especially at the lower levels, but Hitler did have the final say on any subject in which he took a direct interest, including the details of military operations, that is, the actual direction of armies in the fieldÐ'..." (Megargee, 2003). Not only did Hitler give these orders, but if they were not followed exactly as they were given, the subordinates were severely punished. There is a clear emphasis on the task at hand, with little regard for the soldiers involved. These orders did not only extend to his army. Hitler (or subordinates acting through Hitler) had the same mentality no matter who he was talking to. The entire country was to do as they were told or they would suffer the consequences. Hitler also did not like or trust his soldiers or his generals. Fitting the leadership grid, the only time that he ever really spoke to these people was to give them orders to follow.

One other thing to look at in the style approach was Hitler's ability to manipulate people into thinking that he was their friend (or at least not a threat) in order to achieve his goals. Hitler's primary goal was to expand Germany and to take over a part of Eastern Russia. In light of this goal, Hitler made sub-goals that involved eliminating certain armies that would hinder in his goals. Knowing that Germany had just been defeated in WWI, Hitler used that as an excuse to build up his army and through manipulative discussion and empty promises of peace, Hitler soon had a naval fleet outside of Britain and troops mobilizing to prepare for battle. Hitler was shown some opposition to rebuilding the army by such countries as France, but when opposition came from any country, he flattered the leaders and told stories about how much the war had scarred his country and how he wanted peace ("The History Place", 2001). Although Hitler seems to have had great communication skills, again, the only reason that he drove himself to talk to these people was because they were almost taking orders from Hitler to let him do as he pleased. This was done only to attain another step in accomplishing his goals and his lies showed total disregard for the countries that he spoke with because he ended up attacking them. All that Hitler cared about was his tasks. To say that Hitler was seen as controlling and overpowering is an understatement and this is an extreme case where I would say that this leader is an actual "one" where communicating with people interpersonally is concerned. To me, this shows the sociopath that was Adolf Hitler because he really did not care about anyone but himself.

This look at the style approach only really shows Hitler as a leader who simply