What Nelson Mandela Taught the World
About Leadership
By Willie Pietersen
We all recall signal moments in our lives—those that
shaped the way we view the world. February 11, 1990, was
such a day for me. From my home in Connecticut, I
watched the TV broadcast of Nelson Mandela’s release
from prison and saw him walk through the crowds—a tall,
upright, and dignified figure. He was driven to Cape
Town’s city hall where, before a rally of thousands of
supporters, he made a landmark speech declaring his
commitment to peace and reconciliation.
As someone who was born and raised in South Africa,
and witnessed the cruel injustices of apartheid firsthand, I
was overcome by a mixture of disbelief, renewed hope, and
profound gratitude. I shall never forget that powerful
moment.
In the years that followed, Nelson Mandela’s legacy
outgrew the confines of South Africa. Today he is widely
acknowledged to have been one of the most iconic leaders
of the past century. His death on December 5, 2013,
brought forth an outpouring of accolades from around the
world for what he achieved and the legacy he left behind.
Through all the rhetoric, one message emerged clearly:
The world will be a better place if we can carry forward
Mandela’s values and not let them die with the man. So we
need to take stock. What did he achieve? How did he do it?
What can we learn from his life and work?
Mandela’s Challenge: The Scourge of Apartheid
As a former CEO and now a professor at Columbia
Business School who has long studied (and striven to
practice) the art of leadership, these questions are of
professional interest to me. They also matter to me on a
deeply personal level. As a young lawyer in Cape Town, I
saw first-hand the dehumanizing impact of apartheid on all
those whom it touched.
First, a bit of background: South Africa is a multiracial
country with a population of about 52 million, with blacks
making up 80 percent of the total. The apartheid regime,
launched in 1948, enforced rigid segregation between
blacks and whites (apartheid means “separateness”) and
robbed the black majority of their dignity by treating them
as inferior human beings without the rights and privileges
enjoyed by whites. At its core, it was a system of
subjugation. Its residue was material and spiritual
impoverishment.
Under this cruel system, an odious piece of legislation
gave a government board the power to classify a person’s
race according to a set of visual and cultural criteria. The
application of this law reached new depths when individual
members of the same family were classified differently and
forced to live apart or prohibited from having sexual
relations, when courting couples were prevented from
marrying, or when innocent children were forced out of the
schools they were attending.
As a young lawyer, I represented several young couples
whose lives had been torn apart by this inhumane law. The
appeal process required the aggrieved individuals to submit
to a degrading personal inspection, whereby board
members would examine them as if they were laboratory
specimens—for example, twisting a pencil in a young
woman’s hair in order to measure its “kinkiness.” The
indignities and human distress involved have haunted me
ever since.
In reaction to the widespread oppression that
characterized apartheid, there were spasms of resistance,
some of them violent. These were always harshly crushed
and severely punished. Desperation increased and hope
receded. Out of this crucible, Mandela emerged as a leader
of the resistance movement. Ultimately he was
apprehended, tried, convicted of sabotage and sent, along
with other freedom fighters, to Robben Island, a barren
outcrop off the coast near Cape Town where he faced the
bleak prospect of life in prison.
Mandela’s Achievement: A Peaceful End to Apartheid
While Mandela was in jail, pressure mounted on the
white minority government. The door opened for
negotiations—a process that Mandela himself helped bring
about, even while he was imprisoned. In 1990, after 27
years in prison, Mandela was released and assumed his role
as head of the African National Congress and the leading
representative of black South Africans.
In 1994, Mandela became South Africa’s first black
president. The challenges he faced were daunting. Black
South Africans were understandably bitter and hostile
about the decades of oppression they’d suffered; whites
were apprehensive about their loss of privilege and
frightened about the likelihood of violent reprisals by the
newly-empowered blacks.
Yet during his five years as president, Mandela led a
peaceful transition from a discordant, racially segregated
country to a democracy based on a universal franchise,
sustained by a progressive constitution and an impressive
Bill of Rights. In the process he earned the affection and
respect of all races in the country, and, against all odds,
ushered in a period of peace and stability. This achievement
probably has no precedent in history.
Chris Filmer, also a former South African, offers this
compelling metaphor. The situation Mandela faced was
analogous to two powerful steam engines careening
towards each other on the same track. Mandela had to slow
them both down, stop them, then reverse each one to a
position where they could link up and travel in a
completely new direction.
Underneath this monumental achievement lies a
remarkable journey and a revealing portrait of a man’s
character. Together they provide priceless and enduring
lessons in leadership.
The Three Domains of Integrated Leadership
I suggest that leadership is ultimately about integrity,
hence the idea of integrated leadership. An integrated
leader is one who is able to master the three domains of
leadership:
• Personal Leadership (Leadership of Self). This is
about demonstrating authenticity, deep selfknowledge,
and sound personal values—the source of
one’s ability to persuade.
• Interpersonal leadership (Leadership of Others). This
is the capacity to understand and empathize with the
needs of others and bring out the best in everyone.
• Strategic Leadership (Leadership of the
Organization—or in politics, Leadership of the
Nation). This is the ability to establish a winning
strategy, the right priorities, and an effective process
for achieving success.
These three domains are interdependent; when any one of
them is ineffective, it undermines the effectiveness of the
whole. My own view is that mastery of self is the threshold
requirement. It is our permission to lead. If that is not in
place, nothing else will work. In the words of Socrates,
“Let him who would move the world first move himself.”
Let’s examine Mandela’s leadership effectiveness
through the lens of these three domains.
“Be the Change You Seek”: Mandela’s Personal
Leadership
Mastery of self was probably the most remarkable aspect
of Mandela’s leadership. Instead of simply languishing in
prison, he used the time to think deeply and muster his
inner strength. He studied, contemplated his future course
and the future course of his nation, and clarified his vision
for South Africa.
Mandela, like the other leaders of the African National
Congress, had been convinced that guerrilla warfare against
the apartheid regime was a necessary part of their
independence struggle. After all, they reasoned, apartheid
was itself a violent system; hence, a certain amount of
retaliatory violence was justified and arguably unavoidable.
However, during the 1970s and 1980s, the political
situation evolved. Thanks in part to worldwide political and
economic pressure, even conservative white leaders like
Prime Minister P. W. Botha began to acknowledge that the
country must “Adapt or die.” Little by little, a majority of
white South Africans came to accept the reality that the
status quo was unsustainable, and that a violent upheaval
was becoming increasingly likely.
Mandela was following these developments from prison.
He realized that anger and resentment could easily ignite a
bloody civil war. These emotions were present within every
element of South African society. The Afrikaners (white
South Africans ultimately of Dutch descent, sometimes
called the Boers) feared the loss of power and the
extinction of their proud language and culture; the blacks
were seeking retribution against their white oppressors and
jockeying for tribal advantage among themselves; and the
Indian and mixed race groups (known as “coloreds”)
worried about black domination.
Mandela believed that a violent uprising against
apartheid would have horrific results. Therefore, finding
some way to create a nonviolent transition to majority rule
was essential. But how do you persuade such diverse
groups to let go of their deep-seated fears and resentments
and pursue a common purpose?
Simple exhortation would not be not enough. Mandela
understood that he first had to change himself before he
could ask others to change themselves. This was a
challenge of moral leadership. In the words often attributed
to the Indian independence leader Mohandas K. Gandhi—
words Mandela himself often quoted—“Be the change that
you seek.”
Of course, like any other political prisoner suffering at
the hands of an unjust regime, Mandela sometimes felt
anger and thirsted for revenge. But he recognized that
giving free rein to these emotions would damage his
capabilities as a leader. So he trained himself to master his
feelings, even while knowing that reaching out in
friendship to those who had been deadly enemies of his
own kind would expose him to enormous personal danger.
While in prison, Mandela steeped himself in the writings
of Shakespeare, from which he derived profound insights
into human psychology. It’s revealing that, when asked to
name his favorite passage from Shakespeare, he turned to
act 2, scene 2 of Julius Caesar and cited the lines
Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
The strategic shift from armed confrontation to
negotiations and reconciliation was not, for Mandela, a sign
of softness or weakness. On the contrary, he thought of it as
a matter of strength, discipline, and courage.
In 1998, former President Bill Clinton visited Mandela,
who took him to Robben Island and showed him where he
had spent those years doing hard labor and suffering
numerous indignities. Clinton was awestruck. “Surely,” he
said, “you must have felt some anger and the need for
retribution after all this?” Mandela’s answer: “No. If I had
allowed myself those thoughts, I would have remained in
prison, but it would have been a prison of my own
making.” In the same circumstances, how many of us
would have been able to attain that victory within
ourselves?
Learning Your Enemy’s Language: Mandela’s
Interpersonal Leadership
Along with this remarkable victory over himself,
Mandela embarked on his campaign of persuasion,
beginning this work even before his release from prison.
Because he aspired to leadership of the whole nation, this
required him to learn to empathize with all South
Africans—including those who considered him their
enemy.
Consider these extraordinary actions: In prison, Mandela
learned the Afrikaans language and Afrikaner history. He
conversed with his jailors and his negotiation counterparts
in their own language. He talked respectfully to his jailors,
took an interest in their daily concerns and family lives, and
offered them advice when he could. He even studied rugby,
the Afrikaner national sport and intense source of Afrikaner
pride, and discussed the nuances of the game with his
captors.
As Mandela has observed, “If you talk to a man in a
language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk
to him in his language, that goes to his heart.”
After, after being freed, Mandela continued to lead in
the same vein. During negotiations with white leaders over
the shape of the new racially-integrated government, he
drew upon his knowledge of South African history to refer
to Afrikaner heroes such as the generals who fought the
English during the Boer War, impressing and pleasing
those on the other side of the table. When he was
inaugurated as president in 1994, one of the guests seated
on the stage with him was an Afrikaner who had been his
chief jailor at Robben Island.
A year later, when the rugby world cup competition was
staged in South Africa (largely thanks to Mandela’s
influence), he defied fellow leaders of the African National
Congress by publicly supporting the predominantly
Afrikaner Springbok team. (Traditionally, black South
Africans had actually cheered for foreign teams when they
played against the Springboks.) When the Springboks won
the world cup by beating New Zealand, Mandela donned
the team’s jersey and joined wholeheartedly in the victory
celebrations in front of a TV audience of millions —a huge
unifying moment for the nation.
Perhaps most important, Mandela lent his support to the
Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a systematic process
for the nation to undertake the painful but uplifting journey
of forgiveness and reconciliation. Chaired by the
internationally respected Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the
commission invited victims of gross human rights
violations under apartheid to give statements about their
experiences. Perpetrators of violence who gave honest
testimony could receive amnesty from prosecution. Not all
South Africans have been satisfied by the work of the
commission; some blacks, in particular, resent the granting
of amnesty to whites who abused their powers under
apartheid. But most people of all races regard the
commission as an essential step in the peaceful transition to
democracy.
Mandela’s brand of interpersonal leadership wasn’t easy
to practice. Many of his black allies worried that he was
weak when dealing with white leaders. His rivals for
political power sometimes used inflammatory rhetoric to
attract support among black South Africans who were
understandably angry over their long history of
mistreatment and impatient for radical change. Mandela
had to exercise great emotional restraint, political skill, and
his enormous personal prestige to keep the warring factions
within his own party more or less under control.
Mandela’s interpersonal effectiveness stemmed from his
mastery of self, coupled with his profound empathy—the
ability to see the world through the eyes of others. As the
writer Stephen King has said, “You have to start by
knowing yourself so well that you begin to know other
people. A piece of us is in every person we meet.”
The Clear Trumpet: Mandela’s Strategic Leadership
Management guru Peter Drucker once said, “The first
task of a leader is to be the trumpet that sounds the clear
sound.” Did Mandela define a clear goal and priorities, and
did he harness an effective method for reaching these?
Let’s return to the speech Mandela gave when he was
freed from prison. Mandela had to walk a tightrope,
offering a hand of friendship to the white minority while
assuring his black and colored compatriots that he would
not forget their sufferings or ignore their grievances. With
the world holding its breath, Mandela began his speech
with these words:
Friends, comrades and fellow South Africans.
I greet you all in the name of peace, democracy and
freedom for all.
I stand here before you not as a prophet but as a humble
servant of you, the people. Your tireless and heroic
sacrifices have made it possible for me to be here today. I
therefore place the remaining years of my life in your
hands.
These words immediately made it clear that Mandela
intended to represent all South Africans, white and black.
They also reassured anxious listeners around the world that
Mandela was deeply committed to democracy—a crucial
point in an era when many observers associated Africa with
governmental corruption and autocracy. Mandela returned
to this point frequently throughout the remainder of his
speech:
Negotiations on the dismantling of apartheid will have to
address the over- whelming demand of our people for a
democratic, non-racial and unitary South Africa. . . . Our
march to freedom is irreversible. We must not allow fear to
stand in our way. Universal suffrage on a common voters’
role in a united democratic and non-racial South Africa is
the only way to peace and racial harmony.
Like me, many white South Africans hearing Mandela’s
speech must have responded to his call for democracy,
peace, and racial harmony with a mixture of relief and
skepticism. Would it really be possible for a black leader,
however inspiring, to channel decades of frustration and
anger into positive, peaceful action? Yet true to his words,
Mandela went on to lead a campaign of forgiveness and
reconciliation, promoting the inclusive vision of a “rainbow
nation” living together in harmony.
Of course, in addition to being the political father of a
reborn nation—the George Washington of South Africa, if
you will—Mandela also faced the kinds of strategic
challenges any national leader might face. His overriding
vision of freedom and harmony implicitly embraced three
sub-goals; a political goal (democracy) a social goal (better
living conditions) and an economic goal (shared
prosperity). All three, of course, were interrelated.
On the political front, the results have been stunning: a
peaceful transition to democracy and black majority rule.
Mandela was truly the trumpet that sounded the clear
sound. He served as a majestic role model of inclusiveness.
On the social and economic fronts, the results have been
much more mixed. Mandela’s nobly-intended social
programs have been hobbled by a lack of funding, and
significant gaps have remained in areas such as health care,
education, housing and jobs. Economic growth has
averaged just 2 to 4 percent annually, well short of the 6
percent that economists say is needed to close the growing
gap between white and black. Some of Mandela’s
staunchest admirers fault him for stepping down from the
presidency in 1999, at the height of his power and
popularity, while leaving these problems unsolved. (Of
course, Mandela was almost 80 years old, and it would be
hard to claim that he hadn’t earned the right to retire.)
It’s clear, then, that Mandela did not achieve all his
goals; the social and economic problems of the country
remain daunting. Was Mandela, then, a failed leader? I
don’t think so. Compare his legacy with that of Abraham
Lincoln, who saved the Union and freed the slaves—yet it
took a hundred years for comprehensive civil rights
legislation to be enacted. Like Lincoln, Mandela
established the essential foundations for a cause that
transcended his lifetime.
Mandela’s Lessons in Leadership
How do we sum up what Mandela taught us about
leadership?
The first lesson is a simple reminder: No leader is
perfect. Mandela was not as successful in driving economic
growth as he was in the human aspects of leadership. And
even with his formidable human strengths, he was forced to
make trade-offs on how he spent his time and energy. Some
of his friends, supporters, and even family members found
him emotionally distant; some believe he squandered the
opportunities he enjoyed to transform South Africa’s
economic and social system in more fundamental ways.
Even a great leader can’t do everything.
The second lesson is related to the first: Leadership
effectiveness is situational. A leader’s unique skills and
attributes must match the moment. In the case of Mandela’s
visionary leadership, this match was excellent.
Notice, for example, that Mandela’s decision to rely on
nonviolence and to campaign for democracy, and equality
in the new South Africa was based, in part, on the specific
political and social circumstances he faced. Even in the
apartheid era, the South African government maintained a
strong tradition (derived from its European heritage) of
respect for certain democratic norms, including elections,
effective checks and balances, and a strong, independent
system of justice. Mandela and his African supporters were
able to appeal to these institutions and to the values they
represented as a way of rallying open-minded white South
Africans to their cause.
Furthermore, it is important to mention that in the
person of F.W. de Klerk, South Africa’s last leader under
the apartheid regime, Mandela found a negotiation partner
who shared his vision of a peaceful transition and showed
the courage to help carry it through. The two men
subsequently shared the Nobel Peace Prize.
The third lesson: An effective leader must create
powerful processes designed to lead to desired outcomes.
In his dedication to democracy, equality, and inclusiveness,
Mandela helped create processes (such as the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission) that would lead, in the long
run, to a freer nation in which everyone had a stake.
But processes by themselves can’t solve deep-seated
political and social problems. To be trusted, processes must
be based on the integrity of the leaders who implement and
guide them. As Mandela showed us, in order to bring about
transformational change, certain leadership qualities are
essential:
• Deep self-knowledge, humility, and a strong moral
foundation
• Dedication to a cause larger than oneself
• A clear vision for success, supported by unwavering
determination
• An ability to build trust by empathizing with the needs
and concerns of others
• The personal strength to overcome bitterness and
forgive one’s enemies
Together, these represent a unique combination of focus,
principles, courage, and compassion.
We live in a world beset by sectarian hostilities. Imagine
the possibilities if political leaders everywhere could
summon the moral strength to apply Nelson Mandela’s
teachings.
“Unconquerable Soul”: Mandela’s Inspiration
Nelson Mandela drew inspiration from the following
poem by the nineteenth-century writer William Ernest
Henley called “Invictus” (the Latin title means
“unconquered”).
Invictus
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.