Neculai Fantanaru

Everything Depends On The Leader

Extremes In Leadership: Hannibal And Cota The Redhead

On January 29, 2009
, in
Leadership GT-Accent by Neculai Fantanaru

Reserve an important power to be feared, manipulating what happens to you in a framework full of constraints that force unexpected decisions to be made.

When you think you have all the necessary leverage and assets on your side, you may be sorely disappointed, because none of them mean anything. In fact, you may be missing the most important factors for leadership success: the “conditions and circumstances” that most often radically change the fate of a battle. The first example that comes to mind is the disaster of the Battle of Waterloo, which resulted in the final downfall of Napoleon. On that rainy and slushy, cold, foggy day, when Napoleon suddenly suffered from eye pain, migraines and sinus problems (and neurosis), everything was simply against him. Nature could no longer tolerate genius !

But the most telling example concerns another military genius, Hannibal. He, too, a great military genius, but in the end a loser. But do you know who was Hannibal’s real opponent? No, not the legions of Romans who were simply butchered by Hannibal’s starving soldiers. They were so fat, so used to the luxury of Rome, so untrained physically and mentally, that they simply fell into any trap set by Hannibal’s soldiers. In fact, the Romans could not even dismount or mount, they were so heavy and extremely slow. He couldn’t even retreat, they were so slow. In those times, the Romans arrogated to themselves the freedom to allow themselves everything, including excesses and extremes. Of course, excess favors the proliferation of excess.

Therefore, the Roman legions were not the problem of the advance of Hannibal’s armies towards Rome. Rather, really problematic was an unexpected phenomenon: the Celt called Cota Roscovanul. Do you know what it’s like to advance with a huge army, be the best strategist in the world, and still be tripped up by a blitzing arrow at every turn?

Leadership: Do you assume the consequence of a horizontal thinking in which the sequence of your successes must integrate and conform to the concept of “Unscheduled Hazard” type to the compatibility relationship between cause-events and effect-events?

Small in stature, with a smaller head than Hannibal, this Cota Roscovanul (a lucky wanderer) reduced Hannibal’s army by about 25% of units over the course of two years. One of his arrows even hit Hannibal in the leg. How did Cota Roscovanul, with a minimum of infantry soldiers, manage to give Hannibal so much trouble? Simple: he had conditions and circumstances on his side. He had the best archers, he knew how to scout the terrain to find the best locations for his little army, and he knew how to create the most unsuspected hideouts. He simply hid his tracks, always disappearing from where you thought he was.

Hannibal, stopped at the gates of Rome and hesitated to conquer it at the right time for several reasons, two of which must be remembered: first was the psychological moment, he simply could not believe that it was so easy to conquer a colossus like Rome. Then, he received the “sharpest” information, that this Roşcovanul Cota took refuge with the rest of his army in Rome, swearing to defend it with his life. He immediately remembered the wound on his leg, and sensed that he would again have something to do with the unexpected traps laid by the wanderer Cota.

And the same today. You may think that you are some great genius with great experience in a leadership position. You may think that you are surrounded only by professionals. You may think that you have all the leverage and advantages on your side, you know everything, you are super smart, you have all the connections in the world. But you might be too fat and extremely slow, along with all the other people who support you. And it may be that others will surpass you on that exact detour that you didn’t even expect, and that you can’t even find.

Leadership: Is your victory marked by congruence between deeds of glory and the voice of conscience, or is it heterogeneous and multiple, often flexible, capable of unpredictable conjugations beyond the generic coordinates: “conditions” and “circumstances”?

Those who move with difficulty are outdone without any problem by those who run with increased speed, and who also have endurance, and who are truly gifted with fighting qualities. More importantly, conditions and circumstances may not be on your side at all…

So, whenever I hear talk of genius leaders, the first thing I think about is how some failed miserably in the end, despite their genius…

Advice: Do not rely on intelligence, nor on position, nor on other people. Be the best athlete possible, fast and resistant, to educate your spirit and mind. He bets on the fact that everyone else are weathered by time, barely moving, just like snails after the rain, or they are young and living only in luxury, just like snakes in the sun. They are not trained for performance at all. And, more importantly, pray that you have the conditions and circumstances on your side… And Hazard will smile upon you !

Leadership becomes the horizontal projection of a rigorous mentality based on the trinomial “surprise-awe-change” in the context where the only concern is obtaining a victory capable of bringing you back on an upward trajectory at any time.

The Two Extremes In Leadership: Hannibal And Cota Roscovanul, teach us to be aware of the power of chance that can intervene at any time during a war, and that no matter how invincible you think you are, you can always fall into a “stupor” due to the blows of fate, fact which will lead to the unconscious destruction of the self.

Acting in activities of a practical nature, you will be determined to make the transition from spontaneous actions to conscious actions, in which the act of knowledge is more important.

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