Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela is undoubtedly one of the greatest leaders of the 20th century. He was a South African anti-apartheid revolutionary who, after being cast into prison for 27 years because of his efforts to end white minority rule, led the African National Congress to electoral victory and became the first democratically elected president in South Africa’s history. Mandela’s presidency, from 1995 to 1999, was dedicated to healing the deep racial divides that continued to plague the nation and reintroduce the world to his beloved – and now post-apartheid – country that had been shunned by the international community for decades.
In 2009, a resolution to create an annual Nelson Mandela International Day was unanimously adopted by the United Nations General Assembly to recognize Mandela’s extraordinary contributions to creating a culture of peace and freedom and honour his dedication to the service of humanity. This special event was inspired by a call Mandela himself had made in 2008 at one of the many celebrations of his 90th birthday (July 18) where he challenged the next generation to take on the burden of leadership in addressing the world’s social injustices. When he addressed the crowd, he said, “It is time for new hands to lift the burdens. It is in your hands now.”
Although Nelson Mandela International Day is certainly a celebration of Mandela’s life and legacy, more importantly, it is a global movement that commemorates him through action, through the collective striving to create positive, sustained change in the world. This movement is rooted in Mandela’s belief that each individual has the power to transform the world and the ability to make an impact – small or large.
Today, as communities around the world are affected by the economic and social challenges resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic and the public discourse around racism and social justice, the essence of Mandela Day – to take action and inspire change – seems more important than ever before. Last year, on the 10th anniversary of this celebration, its organizers issued a strong call to action: to live our life like he did – for others. This year, the challenge deepens and calls on each one of us to “be an active citizen in one’s community.” They recognize that for Mandela to have a living legacy rather than a static, albeit compelling, story in the history books, it will require the committed effort, dynamic engagement, and collaborative mobilization of citizens of goodwill.
Leadership lessons from Nelson Mandela
The world has learned and can continue to learn from Mandela’s selfless public service. However, through his words and example, he taught aspiring and current leaders in the public, private, and not-for-profit sectors many other valuable lessons. We will highlight three that we fold into our teaching at the Ivey Business School. We do this through student programming events and executive education. For example, our annual HBA Leader Character and Candour Conference includes a workshop where students observe Mandela’s leader character in action using the movie Invictus. Further, the MBA Transformational Leadership course focuses on the exercise of character with workshops such as improvisation, music, yoga and mindfulness to name a few.
1. Mandela exemplified that character matters.
Mandela possessed many leadership competencies, including the ability to align a deeply divided nation around a common vision. But, underpinning these competencies was tremendous strength of character – something that is available for all to develop. There are eleven interconnected dimensions of character: transcendence, drive, collaboration, humanity, humility, integrity, temperance, justice, accountability, courage, and all feeding the dimension of judgment. Mandela’s capacity for transcendence, for instance, is revealed in his inaugural speech when he spoke about the rainbow nation. He said:
“We commit ourselves to the construction of a complete, just and lasting peace ... We enter into a covenant that we shall build the society in which all South Africans, both black and white, will be able to walk tall, without any fear in their hearts, assured of their inalienable right to human dignity – a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world.”
While we often talk about the importance of vision, we rarely examine what it takes to “be” the person who is inspired, optimistic, and creative enough to make it come alive and foster it in others. For Mandela, his singular focus on a peaceful, non-racial, non-sexist, and democratic South Africa guided his actions throughout his presidency. Transcendence alone, however, could have just led him to being a dreamer if it was not accompanied by other dimensions of character such as the courage to take action, the humanity to understand the depth of the pain and suffering that had been inflicted and how it could be repaired, and the temperance to act with patience and calm in the midst of turmoil.
What is also unique about Mandela is that he exhibited many different dimensions of character that are not as evident (or, frankly, are severely lacking) in other leaders, such as humanity, humility, and justice. Many have viewed these dimensions as “soft” or a sign of weakness, but Mandela revealed there is nothing soft about them and demonstrated the strength they bring to leadership.
It is exceptional how Mandela relied on and holistically embodied all eleven character dimensions in his leadership, while also possessing the remarkable capacity to inspire positive character contagion in others.
In 2013, reflecting on Mandela’s passing, we wrote: “While Mr. Mandela's achievements already ensure him a place in the pantheon of great leaders, a more intense focus on developing in others those selfsame character dimensions he personally exemplified, will further burnish his legacy.” We take this to heart in our teaching. At the core of our teaching initiatives (e.g., program events, elective courses, and executive education) is an emphasis on building character dimensions so students and leaders are better equipped to solve complex challenges in business, government, and society. Through myriad teaching approaches, they learn how specific character dimensions come into play in real life. And through the work of the Ian O. Ihnatowycz Institute for Leadership, we help leaders to develop character-based leadership in their organizations.
2. Mandela drew upon great courage to build trust among his fellow citizens.
Mandela has been quoted as saying, “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” Mandela averted what many people expected – an all-out civil war in South Africa – by deploying tremendous personal courage. Time and time again, he practised compromise, pragmatism, and reconciliation. He shared power in government and stressed to his most ardent supporters the need to exercise self-control. At the same time, while he often displayed flexibility and magnanimity, observers explained that he could also be autocratic and stubborn when the situation called for it.
Mandela’s objective was to bring the country together – to bring peace and reconciliation to the nation. He seized every opportunity to do so, including the 1995 Rugby World Cup, which, that year, was being held in and hosted by South Africa. In contrast, U.S. President Donald Trump is currently using sports – notably the National Football League and NASCAR racing – to drive a wedge between himself and his supporters, and those who seek racial justice. While both men leverage(d) sport as a political strategy, Trump is using it to pander to his white, conservative base and cling to racist relics like the Confederate flag or object to (long overdue) team name changes, as he did following the recent announcement from the “Redskins.” Whereas Mandela calculated early on that the Rugby World Cup could serve as a catalyst to bring South Africans together and help forge a unified national identity. Even though rugby was dominated by whites, he cautiously, yet consistently strove to cultivate national enthusiasm in the lead up to the event and used the tournament as a gateway into courageous conversations surrounding forgiveness, reconciliation, and understanding. Step by step, Mandela built trust among South Africans.
Trust is critical to national economic performance and social well-being. As writer Francis Fukuyama has argued, a major driver of success in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic is whether citizens trust their leaders. In his words, “… trust is the single most important commodity that will determine the fate of a society. In a democracy no less than in a dictatorship, citizens have to believe that the executive knows what it is doing. And trust, unfortunately, is exactly what is missing in America today.” Important issues such as race, climate, the COVID-19 pandemic, and even face masks, are becoming politicized. The result? Cynicism. Increased distrust. Petty and not so petty vendettas. Gridlock. Lack of progress.
3. Mandela was a master in patience.
Although a firebrand in his younger years, prison taught Mandela to slow down. He understood that history is rarely made overnight. Lynne Duke, who was the Johannesburg bureau chief for The Washington Post during Mandela’s presidency, wrote in her book, Mandela, Mobutu and Me: A Newswoman’s African Journey:
“Struggling against racism was part of my being, as was the belief that the struggle itself was a cherished and noble act. The broad contours of South Africa’s unfolding drama were all too familiar to me, which I suppose is why I found myself hooked: hooked on the story, on seeing it through, on being somewhere near the finish line when the race was won. I felt personally gratified to witness small victories, small steps forward. And it thrilled me, to be honest, when I could throw my two cents into the battle.”
Mandela believed in even the smallest victories. But, at this critical time in human history, how patient should we be? And who among us will stand strong and face the challenges of our lifetime? Racial injustice. Climate change. Income disparity and poverty. Gender inequality. Food and water security. Displaced persons. There appears to be a deep generational divide between an establishment, desperate to cling on to the idea of slow, gradual change – and a youth fired up and impatient for radical overhaul. We suspect that many of the people who make up the establishment continue to find a way to say “wait/not so fast,” but, as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said many years ago, “Wait has almost always meant never.” We can’t wait any longer to tackle today’s crises, to acknowledge the burning platform upon which we literally and figuratively stand. It is also time to recognize that addressing these urgent challenges should not be approached as a list of independent issues to check off, but as an interconnected and intersectional web, and that movement – one way or the other – on one issue, affects them all. This is not to say that we don’t need to practise the patience for which Mandela is renowned. But rather than patiently waiting to take action, let’s have patience with each other as we seek to understand through genuine dialogue. Have the patience to listen, learn and unlearn, not just react and entrench. And have the patience to reflect upon another’s words, as well as our own beliefs before we make assumptions, jump to conclusions, and pass judgment. So while we direct patience towards each other, we can direct urgency towards starting to solve the critical situations we face. We have enough evidence-based science and, at least, burgeoning social awareness, to begin stacking up the small victories Mandela believed amassed to great impact.
Our Final Thought
Many, many people have reflected on Nelson Mandela’s legacy. Keith Shear, senior lecturer in African Studies at the University of Birmingham, specializing in postwar South Africa, put it as follows:
“For countless people worldwide, Mandela symbolises the virtues of an indefatigable struggle against the evils of racism and oppression. Rising above discords, bigotries and inequalities – those of his own country and of others – he became a unifying figure inspiring and eliciting our common humanity.”
We believe the world needs more humanity. We believe, as his eponymous international day calls for: that every day be Mandela Day. To address today’s urgent challenges, we need more people who seek to model his strength of character: respectful, compassionate, empathetic, forgiving, magnanimous, composed, and determined. We need to keep Mandela’s legacy alive by rising up and accepting his challenge to us all: “Be the scriptwriters of your destiny and feature yourselves as the stars that showed the way towards a brighter future.”