Identifying
SuperAttainers
The
SuperAttainment Research Center is funding a multi-year study of high achieving individuals across a great variety of fields and geographies. The purpose is to determine key attributes indicating an propensity toward superior achievement that can be recognized by most people with experience managing other people.
The work is ongoing and is being expanded continuously.
The
SuperAttainment Research Center is an initiative to help people
in management positions identify high potential leaders and channel
them toward meaningful contributions to their organizations and to
society at large.
The
8 attributes of SuperAttainers listed below are considered some of
the
most common and easiest to identify when accompanied by other
aspects of career success.
8
Attributes of
SuperAttainers
1. Early Success
The Early Bird Gets the Worm…and Everything Else
SuperAttainers usually begin doing amazing things early in their life. In fields like music and sport, it has long been
understood that for a child to have a chance at greatness, he needs to begin around age 3 and then work at it for many years. In business and politics, unusual ability is also recognized early in a SuperAttainer’s career and is followed with many years of continued achievement. In the greatness game, it is the rabbit who wins the
race -- as long as he persists like the tortoise.
2. Contrarian
When in Rome, Don’t Do As the Romans
SuperAttainers generally think of themselves as different and apart from other people. They can often be described as rebellious and
disobedient by those who try to rule over them and are never willing crowd followers. Tremendous success seems to require doing things tremendously different.
Doing things a little better will yield results that are only a little better than others and this is not what SuperAttainers are interested in.
3. Conceited
The Pride Before The Rise
In order for someone to be thought of as great in the minds of others, he must first be thought of as great in his own mind. The tremendous achievements of SuperAttainers seem to be merely a realization in the outer world of what is already in their inner world. Predictably, it is uncommon for such people to be overly shy about describing their abundant abilities. Many SuperAttainers have come to recognize that being known as arrogant does not help their purpose and they do a good job of appearing modest. However, a bit of digging into their personality should uncover a deep feeling of self-significance.
4. Hard-Knocked
Nothing Succeeds Like Suffering
SuperAttainers have often experienced traumatic periods when their careers or even their lives were in great peril. It is during these times that they gain a deep seated feeling of personal vulnerability that can stay with them for the rest of their lives. The advantage to the future SuperAttainer is that they become consumed by the realization that they must accomplish all they can while they have the chance because it can all come crashing down at any time. It is a psychological condition that will drive them to greatness for
the rest of their lives.
5. Loner
One is Company, Two is a Crowd
SuperAttainers are often described by others as dreamers, outsiders, cold-hearted and similar labels often given to loners. They are comfortable spending long periods in the company of themselves to ponder, learn and envisage the future. Many develop a love of solitary activities such as book-reading early in their life. They are not usually enthusiastic participants in team activities except when they are
leading the group.
6. Mentored
& Motivated
Behind Every Great Man are His Parents
Parents often play
the key role in the cultivation and realization of SuperAttainers,
spending immense amounts of time and money to give their offspring
the skills, experiences and relationships required for immense
amounts of success. They tutor baby SuperAttainers from the crib,
send them to the best schools and put them in touch with the best
mentors. It has been shown that mothers, in particular, can play a
strong role if they are supremely confident in their son's innate
abilities and then take devoted and continuing action to develop
them.
7. Discontent
Patience is No Virtue
SuperAttainers have an abnormally intense need for continuous accomplishment. Success does not bring these people a sense of inner peace. There is always someone else to overtake or a higher target to aspire to. They are impatient, dissatisfied and edgy when not engaged in activities that lead to the fulfillment of their personal goals. They seem psychologically unstable in this regard compared with most people.
8. Promoted
Self-Flattery Gets You Everywhere
There have been many great people who have lived and died in the history of our species but nobody knows most of them because their achievements were inadequately documented. In order to be thought of as a great success by large numbers of people, someone needs to be a great success at publicizing the SuperAttainer. In most instances, it is the SuperAttainers
themselves who are great self-promoters. In other cases, another talented person takes on the critically important role.
TWO
TYPES OF SUPERATTAINERS
1. Aristocratic SuperAttainers
Pampered and pompous, these people excel despite having been given it all. They grow up with all the best things, attend the best schools and hobnob with the best minds. Because they are so deeply bonded to a powerful and privileged elite, they are often conservative and elitist. Real change seldom happens with these people in charge. On the plus side, they are less likely to lead themselves and their followers down paths of mutual destruction. Examples of Aristocratic SuperAttainers include: Winston Churchill, Peter the Great, Louis XIV and Frederick the Great.
2. Come-From-
Nothing
SuperAttainers
Rags to riches, these people pull themselves up to greatness through tremendous obstacles. Luck plays a role but most of their success is due to relentless force of character. Since they come from outside the establishment, they can be great agents of change. Unfortunately, they are prone to crash and burning when they inevitably overstretch themselves and their supporters. Examples of Come-From-Nothing SuperAttainers include: Joseph Stalin,
Napoleon Bonaparte, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Mao Zedong.
Rules
for Managers
Rules
for Self-Help
Rules
for Parents
Men
Vs. Women
The
SuperAttainment Research Center is operated as a CSR
(Corporate Social Responsibility) activity of Chalre
Associates Executive Search to help business people identify and
develop future leaders for their organizations and society at
large.
Chalre
Associates is a regional provider of Executive Search services
in the emerging countries of the Asia Pacific region.
Multinational companies use them to bridge the gap between the local
environment and their world-class requirements in countries like
Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.
 +632 892 6703
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SuperAttainer:
Gustavus Adolphus
Swedish Warrior King:
Gustavus
Adolphus
Main
Life Accomplishments:
During
his reign, Gustav Adolf founded the city of Gothenburg as well as a number
of smaller cities. He is also the founder of the University of Tartu in
Tartu, Estonia, which then belonged to the Kingdom of Sweden. At this
time, the three largest cities in the Swedish kingdom were Riga (the
capital of Latvia), Stockholm and Tallinn (capital of Estonia).
Basics:
Born
December 9, 1594 in Stockholm, Sweden:
Died: November 6, 1632 ( 38 years old)
Nationality: Swedish
Religion:
Fields: Politics, Military
Main Accomplishments: He is the only Swedish king to be styled
"the Great" and he was one of the major participants in the
Thirty Years' War.
Chronology
of Life Events:
Dec
9 1594
Birth
of Gustavus Adolphus II
Jul
1626
Gustav
Adolf and his army disembark at Pillau, Prussia during the Polish-Sweden
War of 1625-1629
Aug
18 1627
The
King is seriously wounded by a Polish soldier in the battle of Tczew.
May
1630
Gustav
Adolf lands with his army in Pomerania. On July 6 he lands in Germany.
Sep
1631
At
the Battle of Breitenfeld, Gustav Adolf decisively defeats the Catholic
forces led by Tilly, even after the allied Protestant Saxon army had been
routed and fled with the baggage train.
Apr
1632
At
the Battle of Lech, Gustav Adolf defeats Tilly once more, and in the
battle Tilly sustains a fatal wound
May
1632
Munich
yields to the Swedish army.
Sep
1632
Gustav
Adolf attacks the stronghold of Alte Veste, which is under the command of
Wallenstein, but is repulsed, marking the first defeat in the Thirty
Years' War of the previously invincible Swedes. This leads to defection of
some mercenary elements in the Protestant army.
Nov
1632
At
the Battle of Lützen, Gustav Adolf is killed but the Swedes win the day,
thanks to Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar, who assumed command, and defeat
Wallenstein. The Swedish war effort was kept up by generals Gustav Horn,
Johan Banér, Lennart Torstenson and chancellor Axel Oxenstierna until the
Peace of Westphalia.
Early
Life:
Gustavus
Adolphus was born in Stockholm as the oldest son of King Charles IX of
Sweden of the Vasa dynasty and his second wife, Christina of Holstein-Gottorp.
He inherited the throne upon his father's death at the age of seventeen in
1611, as well as an ongoing succession of dynastic disputes that
periodically broke out in warfare with his Polish cousin, Sigismund III of
Poland, who in the preliminary religious strife before the Thirty Years'
War, was forced to let go of the throne of Sweden to Gustav's father.
Sigismund III wanted to regain the throne of Sweden and tried to force
Gustav Adolph to renounce the title.
In a round of this dynastic dispute, he invaded Livonia when he was 31,
beginning the Polish-Swedish War (1625–1629). He intervened on behalf of
the Lutherans in Prussia, who opened the gates to their cities. His reign
became famous from his actions a few years later when in June 1630 he
landed in Germany, continuing Sweden's involvement in the ongoing Thirty
Years' War. Gustavus intervened on the anti-Imperial side, which at the
time was losing to the Holy Roman Empire and its Catholic allies; the
Swedish forces would quickly reverse that situation.
He was married to Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg, the daughter of John
Sigismund, Elector of Brandenburg, and chose the Prussian city of Elbing
as the base for his operations in Germany. He died in the Battle of
Lützen in 1632. His early death was a great loss to the Lutheran side, it
prolonged the war for many years. It resulted in large parts of Germany
and other countries, who for a large part had become Lutheran in faith,to
be forced into Catholicism (via Counter-Reformation). His involvement in
the Thirty Years' War gave rise to the old prophecy that he was the
incarnation of "the Lion of the North", or as it is called in
German "Der Löwe von Mitternacht" (Literally: "The Lion
from Midnight").
Wife
Background:
She
was the daughter of Elector Johann Sigismund of Brandenburg and Anna,
Duchess of Prussia, daughter of Albert Frederick, Duke of Prussia.
In
the year 1620 Maria Eleonora married, with her mother's consent but
against her brother's will, the Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus. She bore a
daughter, Christina, in 1626.
She
was described as the most beautiful queen in Europe, and, as her daughter
later said, had "all the virtues and vices" associated with her
gender.
The
romantic circumstances of her marriage, in which she and her husband had
to elope to escape her brother's care, was said to have fostered in her a
genuine love for her husband, a very unusual condition for a queen of her
time. She displayed her love very openly and inappropriately according to
the etiquette of the time, which made people consider her to be emotional
and hysterical and very "feminine", which meant she was not
considered as very intelligent. Her husband wrote specifically that, if he
should die when his heir was still a minor, his widow was not to be
allowed any political influence whatsoever. He continued to be in love
with Ebba Brahe their entire marriage, but it does not appear that Maria
Eleonora noticed this.
When
her husband died in 1632, Queen Eleonora displayed a grief that made
people consider her hysterical tendencies had finally broke out in
insanity; she refused to allow her husband to be buried and hugged and
touched and kissed the dead body, even after it had began to rot, in an
intimate way that made witnesses feel sick. After the king was finally
buried, she was discovered to have broken into the burial place to try to
get access to the body.
In
1636, she had the custody of her daughter Queen Christina of Sweden taken
from her, and after she fled to Denmark she was accused of attempted
treachery, stripped of her allowance and officially banned from Sweden;
she returned to Brandenburg in 1643.
She
eventually returned to Sweden in 1648, but the relationship between her
and her daughter was never very good.
Father
Background:
Was
King of Sweden from 1604 until his death. He was the youngest son of
Gustav Vasa and Margareta Leijonhufvud. By his father's will he got, by
way of appanage, the Duchy of Södermanland, which included the provinces
of Närke and Värmland; but he did not come into actual possession of
them till after the fall of Eric XIV of Sweden in 1569.
Mother
Background:
Queen
Christina was a dominating and strong willed woman. Her marriage was
considered happy, as she and her husband were very similar in personalit.
She often accompanied him on his journeys, among them to Estonia and
Finland in 1600-1601. He was most certainly not faitful to her. Although
she did not dominate her husband, who was just as dominating as she, and
did not have any political influence on him, she was highly regarded,
respected and feared. She did however, act as regent during her husbands
absence in 1605, and she was also known to have prevented her younger son
from becoming Russian Czar in 1610-1612 by keeping him at home, and as
widow, she also acted as regent for her younger son, Carl Philip, over
Södermanland, until he died, in 1611-1622. As a dowager queen, she is
known for preventing her son from marrying his mistress, Ebba Brahe.
SuperAttainer
ANALYSIS
SECTION:
1. Early Success
When
did the SuperAttainer first display ability that was greatly above average
and what were his accomplishments?
REFERENCES:
1.
2. Contrarian
What actions did the SuperAttainer take that demonstrated a mindset that was
very different from those around him?
REFERENCES:
1.
3. Conceited
What are the actions and documented statements that exhibit an elevated
sense of self importance of the SuperAttainer?
REFERENCES:
1.
4. Hard-Knocked
During what events did the SuperAttainer experience personal misery and
severe anxiety?
REFERENCES:
1.
5. Loner
Is there evidence of the SuperAttainer being comfortable spending time apart
from others?
REFERENCES:
1.
6. Mentored &
Motivated
Who was vital to developing the SuperAttainer and guiding his career and
what significant actions were taken?
REFERENCES:
1.
7. Discontent
What evidence is there that the SuperAttainer was unsatisfied with even
great personal accomplishment?
REFERENCES:
1.
8. Promoted
What actions or events were responsible for publicizing the tremendous
achievements and abilities of the SuperAttainer?
REFERENCES:
1.
Overall
Score:
x
out of 8 = xx%
PASS
SuperAttainer
Type:
Describe
the factors in the SuperAttainer’s background to indicate whether he is a
Come-From-Nothing or Aristocratic type..
Conclusion:
Executive Search
& Management Consulting:
Chalre
Associates provides its Executive Search & Management
Consulting services throughout the emerging countries of the Asia
Pacific region with specific focus on Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand,
Malaysia, Vietnam and Singapore. Regional Managers use us to help
bridge the gap between local environments and the world-class
requirements of multinational corporations.
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