Nelson Mandela Leadership Analysis

Separate but Equal: Leadership

Invictus is a biographical film based on the book Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation. The inspirational true story of the film revolves around Nelson Mandela’s efforts and strategy to unite the South African society that is torn apart by apartheid through multiple approaches. Upon being elected as the first black President of the nation amidst severe opposition from whites, Mandela is faced an overwhelming challenge to reconcile the nation and build a democracy in a country free of racism. In this paper, I am going to analyze both Nelson Mandela’s leadership style as well as Francois Pienaar’s leadership style.

President Mandela uses the 1995 Rugby World Cup as an unassuming opportunity

Being aware that his decision would make his supporters unhappy, he stood by his decision because he believed in leading from values. An effective leader would strive to incorporate principles into people’s passion. Mandela exhibited both people-oriented and task-oriented leadership. His warmth, mutual trust, respect, appreciation and gratitude for his subordinates impressed Francois. In a rugby match, Mandela personally interacted with some of the viewers at the game.

During their first meeting, Mandela appreciated Francois’s job as captain of Springboks and acknowledged the challenges as a captain of a national team. Mandela also demonstrated a high level of emotional intelligence and created a positive work environment which made him earn trust, respect and love from his employees. He made an effort to strike a personal chord with his subordinates. For instance, Mandela quietly memorized the names of each of the Springboks players so he can give them each a personal greeting. Mandela was an excellent motivator. This is visible when he inspired Francois to win the World

He was the captain of the underperforming Springboks. Francois exemplifies transactional leadership. As captain, his role was to motivate and inspire the team to deliver their best performance and regain the confidence of the country in his team, as well as the players’ confidence in themselves. His leadership ideology was leading others by example to improve team performance, much like Mandela’s strategy. In one scene when the team was exhausted after extensive physical training, Francois was the first one to continue training despite the exhaustion, hence inspiring his team-mates to continue pushing