Mandela - Lessons of Leadership
Mandela - Lessons of Leadership
Sunday, 10 August 2008
The photo above has not been retouched or photoshopped. It shows me with Nelson Mandela a few years ago at Madame Tussaud’s waxworks in London.
I was reflecting on Nelson Mandela’s contribution to our planet this week as he was celebrating his 90th birthday. Nelson Mandela is our President of the United World Colleges, but much more than that, he is the inspiration to those of us who work on a day-to-day basis with young people to build a better world. To quote Mandela’s own words:
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”, and again, speaking of the importance of education in his own experience:
“It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that a son of a mineworker can become the head of the mine, that a child of farm workers can become the President of a great nation.”
The fact that I have taken the time to think about Nelson Mandela’s contributions does not imply in any way that this has been a slow week for me. Among other things, I have been involved in interviewing prospective new teachers and students hoping to be accepted in our 2nd round of offers, I have been conducting a full analysis of our IB examination results, collecting our new teachers and their families from the airport and driving them to the College, liaising with the Immigration Department over several visa issues for some of our new students, preparing for negotiations with the Education Bureau on our proposed fees for this year, pursuing some legal issues, working on the details of our proposed auditorium, helping to finalisw a restructure of the security department (our guards), meeting with the developer of the new College-wide database, and finalising arrangements with the students that I will take to North Korea next week - not bad for a week when we ‘lost’ a day due to the Force 8 typhoon that swept through Hong Kong.
The reason that I have been reflecting on Mandela is that as I returned from my summer break a little over a week ago, I enjoyed reading an article in ‘Time’ magazine on Nelson Mandela’s thoughts on leadership. In some circles, the word ‘leadership’ is out of favour as it is perceived as being elitist. We do not see it that way at LPCUWC, where we take our responsibility very seriously to prepare talented young people to assume positions of influence and leadership in a wide variety of fields in the years ahead.
It is reassuring that Nelson Mandela also recognises the importance of leadership. In an interview with Richard Stengel, Mandela identified his 8 lessons of leadership. When a person of the substance of Nelson Mandela speaks, I take the time to listen, so please let me share with you my summary of his 8 lessons of leadership:
No. 1 - Courage is not the absence of fear — it’s inspiring others to move beyond it
In 1994, during the presidential election campaign, Mandela was on a flight when one of the plane’s engines failed. Some people on the plane began to panic. The only thing that calmed them was looking at Mandela, who quietly read his newspaper as if he were a commuter on his morning train to the office. It was only when the plane landed that he confided to an aide “Man, I was terrified up there!”
He knew that through the act of appearing fearless, others were inspired. This was something he perfected during his imprisonment on Robben Island. Prisoners who were with him said watching Mandela walk across the courtyard, upright and proud, was enough to keep them going for days. He knew that he was a model for others, and that gave him the strength to triumph over his own fear.
No. 2 - Lead from the front — but don’t leave your base behind
Mandela was able to negotiate with his opponents at the same time as he was encouraging his supporters. It takes a careful balancing act to achieve this effectively. Slowly and deliberately, he brought them - his opponents as well as his supporters - around to his way of thinking. For Mandela, refusing to negotiate (or not) was a matter of tactics, not principles, and throughout his life, he made that distinction. His unwavering principle — the overthrow of apartheid and the achievement of one man, one vote — was immutable, but almost anything that helped him get to that goal he regarded as a tactic. He remains a very pragmatic idealist, even today.
No. 3 - Lead from the back — and let others believe they are in front
As a boy, Mandela was greatly influenced by Jongintaba, the tribal king who raised him. When Jongintaba had meetings of his court, the men gathered in a circle, and only after all had spoken did the king begin to speak. The chief’s job, according to Mandela, was not to tell people what to do but to form a consensus. “Don't enter the debate too early”, he used to say.
When Mandela held cabinet meetings, some of his colleagues would shout at him — to move faster, to be more radical — and Mandela would simply listen. When he finally did speak at those meetings, he slowly and methodically summarised everyone’s points of view and then unfurled his own thoughts, steering the decision in the direction he wanted without imposing it. As Mandela said, the trick of leadership is allowing yourself to be led too, or to use his own words, “It is wise to persuade people to do things and make them think it was their own idea.”
This reflects one of my favourite perspectives on leadership - I have usually found that the most effective leaders in schools are those who guide, steer and direct others without them necessarily being aware of it. In the words of the Chinese sage, Lao Tzu, who wrote about this same idea in the 6th Century BC: “A leader is best when people barely know he exists. When his work is done, his aim is fulfilled, they will say ‘We did this ourselves’”.
No. 4 - Know your enemy — and learn about his favourite sport
As far back as the 1960s, Mandela began studying Afrikaans, the language of the white South Africans who created apartheid. His comrades in the ANC (African National Congress) teased him about it, but he wanted to understand the Afrikaner’s worldview, believing that one day he would be fighting them or negotiating with them, and either way, his destiny was tied to theirs.
Mandela was a lawyer, and in prison he used his Afrikaans to help the warders with their legal problems. They were far less educated and worldly than he, and it was extraordinary to them that a black man was willing and able to help them.
No. 5 - Keep your friends close — and your rivals even closer
This sounds like a modern version of a key point from Sun Zi’s ancient Chinese military treatise, the “Art of War”. Many of the guests Nelson Mandela invited to his house were people whom he did not completely trust. He had them to dinner, he called to consult with them, he flattered them and gave them gifts. Mandela is a man of great charm — and he has often used that charm to even greater effect on his rivals than on his allies. On Robben Island, Mandela would always include in his brains trust people he neither liked nor relied on. When Mandela emerged from prison, he famously included his jailers among his friends and put leaders who had kept him in prison in his first Cabinet, even though those close to him knew that he despised some of these men.
Mandela believed that embracing his rivals was a way of controlling them: they were more dangerous on their own than within his circle of influence. He cherished loyalty, but he was never obsessed by it. It is said that the flip side of being an optimist (something that Mandela and I share) is trusting people too much. Mandela recognises that the way to deal with those he does not trust is to neutralise them with charm — for my part, I just I wish I shared Mandela’s charm as well as his optimism :-)
No. 6 - Appearances matter — and remember to smile
When Mandela was running for the presidency of South Africa in 1994, he knew that symbols mattered as much as substance. He was never a great public speaker, and people often tuned out to what he was saying after the first few minutes. However, it was the iconography that people understood. When he was on a platform, he would always do the toyi-toyi, the township dance that was a symbol of the struggle. Perhaps even more important was Mandela’s dazzling, all-inclusive smile. For white South Africans, the smile symbolised Mandela's lack of bitterness and suggested that he was sympathetic to them. To black voters, it said, ‘I am the happy warrior, and we will triumph’. The ubiquitous ANC election poster was simply Mandela’s smiling face. The smile was the message.
No. 7- Nothing is black or white
Mandela was once asked: “When you decided to suspend the armed struggle, was it because you realised you did not have the strength to overthrow the government, or because you knew you could win over international opinion by choosing non-violence?” Mandela’s answer was simply, “Why not both?”
Mandela shows us that life does not have to be a simple “either/or”. Decisions are complex, and there are always competing factors. To look for simple explanations is the bias of the human brain, but it doesn’t correspond to reality. Nothing is ever as straightforward as it appears. Leaders need to be comfortable with contradiction.
No. 8 - Quitting is leading too
Knowing how to abandon a failed idea, task or relationship is often the most difficult kind of decision a leader has to make. In many ways, Mandela's greatest legacy as President of South Africa is the way he chose to leave it. When he was elected in 1994, Mandela probably could have pressed to be President for life — and there were many who felt that in return for his years in prison, that was the least South Africa could do. However, Mandela was determined to set a precedent for all who followed him — not only in South Africa but across the rest of Africa. He would be the anti-Mugabe, the man who gave birth to his country and refused to hold it hostage. He said his job was to set the course and not steer the ship. Unlike Mandela, most leaders do not know when to quit or to move on.
Footnote:
I expect that my next blog will be in two weeks from now rather than next Sunday as usual. The reason is that I will be taking a group of students into North Korea from the middle of this week and I will be out of internet contact until I return.
Okay! I managed to write a blog without mentioning that wonderful opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, which is all that everyone here in Hong Kong is talking about today - the ceremony and the national pride that derives from the games. It was not easy to write a whole blog without mentioning it ..... oops!