21 Great Leaders: Learn Their Lessons, Improve Your Influence (6 page)

Nelson Mandela wanted everyone to be represented in the new Rainbow Nation. He wanted black South Africans to know their time had come. He wanted white South Africans to embrace the coming change.

One year into Mandela’s presidency, in May–June 1995, South Africa hosted the Rugby World Cup Tournament in Johannesburg. The tournament inflamed a national debate. Most black South Africans considered rugby a “white man’s game” and demanded the removal of the South African team emblem, the springbok gazelle. The springbok, said blacks, symbolized apartheid. But white South Africans were proud of the springbok. The South African rugby team had been known as the Springboks since 1906. The controversy heightened racial tensions at the beginning of Mandela’s presidency.

Prior to democratic rule, black South Africans had supported anyone playing against the Springboks. To them, the all-white Springboks were part of the oppressive system of apartheid. But Nelson Mandela saw an opportunity to use sports to realize his dream of South Africa as a Rainbow Nation.

Before the tournament, Mandela visited the team and chatted with the players. He wore a Springboks cap and said that the nation would support the team throughout the tournament. The Springbok’s slogan fused the aspirations of the team with Mandela’s vision: “One Team, One Country.”

The opening match against Australia was a handy victory for South Africa. Two days after that win, at the urging of team manager Morné du Plessis, the team made a pilgrimage to Robben Island. Du Plessis wanted the team to understand who Nelson Mandela was and what he had suffered for his vision of a Rainbow Nation. “There was a cause-and-effect connection between the Mandela factor and our performance in the field,” du Plessis said. “It was cause-and-effect on a thousand fronts…. It all came perfectly together. Our willingness to be the nation’s team and Mandela’s desire to make the team the national team.”
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On Robben Island, the players examined the cell where Nelson Mandela had spent eighteen of his twenty-seven years in prison. They imagined what it must have been like for Mandela—a tall, athletic man like themselves—to be confined in that cramped space. Some players wept.

The underdog Springboks stunned the world, defeating Western Samoa in the quarterfinals and France in the semifinals. The final was held at Ellis Park in Johannesburg on June 24. The Springboks faced “unbeatable” New Zealand, the best team in the world. From the stands, clad in Springboks jersey and cap, President Mandela cheered them on.

The Springboks led 9–6 at halftime, but New Zealand evened the score with a drop goal in the second half. The score was still tied at full-time. South Africa and New Zealand both scored penalty goals in the first half of extra time, but a Springbok drop goal capped the game with a storybook ending.

The stadium erupted in celebration. The game had become a metaphor of the hopes and dreams of millions of people—and of the leadership vision of one extraordinary man. Nelson Mandela presented the William Webb Ellis Cup to Springboks captain François Pienaar. That scene stands as one of the most iconic moments in sports history.

That night, the people of the Rainbow Nation poured into the streets of South Africa. They danced and celebrated—as one.

Nelson Mandela served one term as president of South Africa then retired from politics—but not from leadership. He continued to play a vital role on the world stage throughout the closing years of his life.

On December 5, 2013, Nelson Mandela died at his home in Johannesburg, surrounded by his family. He had suffered from a long respiratory illness and died at the age of ninety-five. His body lay in state from December 11 through 13 at the Union Buildings in Pretoria. It rained on and off throughout those days—and the rain produced some beautiful rainbows.

Today South Africa is defined by its peaceful elections and peaceful race relations. But South Africa is also defined by crime, poverty, inadequate education, ineffective health care, and government corruption. South African leaders who followed Nelson Mandela have not always followed his example of selflessness, integrity, and vision. Mandela’s vision has lapsed into disrepair.

Nelson Mandela did more than anyone thought one man could do. Now the nation needs leaders who will learn from Mandela’s example, check their selfish impulses at the door, and become visionary leaders in their own right.

Here are some leadership lessons that we can learn from the amazing life of Nelson Mandela:

1.
Let your vision power your leadership life
. Nelson Mandela had many great leadership qualities, but I believe his vision was the engine that powered his other leadership skills.

When people talk about the qualities that made Nelson Mandela great, they usually think of his
forgiveness
. Instead of holding grudges or seeking revenge, Mandela reached out to enemies and converted them into friends. Or people think of his
perseverance
. Though sentenced to life in prison, he refused to give up his vision for South Africa’s future.

But Mandela’s vision of a unified South Africa came first. His vision of a unified South Africa gave him a reason to forgive. And his vision of a unified South Africa sustained him as he persevered through the long years of isolation.

2.
Let your vision be your road map to keep you focused on your goals
. In
10 Simple Secrets of the World’s Greatest Business Communicators
, leadership expert Carmine Gallo writes:

What is your dream? What is your vision for the future? No matter how challenging and intimidating your dream may be, it probably doesn’t compare to the challenges that Nelson Mandela faced. Write down your vision. Post it on the wall. Read it every day. Then go make your leadership dream come true.

3.
Don’t confuse your vision with your viewpoint
. Stay true to your vision. Be obsessed with your vision, be possessed by your vision—but hold your viewpoint loosely. In the realm of ideas, always be willing to flex, learn, change, and grow.

Nelson Mandela demonstrated a remarkable ability to revise his views while maintaining his vision for South Africa. Mandela was a socialist at heart. In January 1992, he flew to Davos, Switzerland, for the five-day World Economic Forum. Before that trip, Mandela was committed to a socialist agenda, including nationalizing South African corporations.

Ironically, delegates from two Communist nations, China and Vietnam, urged Mandela to adopt free-market capitalism instead. A member of the South African delegation recalled that Mandela had some “interesting meetings with the leaders of the Communist Parties of China and Vietnam. They told him frankly as follows: ‘We are currently striving to privatize state enterprises and invite private enterprise into our economies. We are Communist Party governments, and you are a leader of a national liberation movement. Why are you talking about nationalization?’ ”

The Chinese and Vietnamese economies were thriving. Their advice forced Mandela to rethink South Africa’s future. “They changed my views altogether,” Mandela told his biographer, Anthony Sampson. Mandela dropped his nationalization plans, and pushed South Africa to open its markets to global investment. The nation soon had the fastest-growing economy on the African continent.
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It happened because Nelson Mandela had the wisdom to revise his economic beliefs while holding fast to his vision for South Africa’s future. Wise leaders adapt their belief systems in order to stay true to their vision.

4.
To communicate effectively and persuasively, communicate your vision
. During Mandela’s Rivonia Trial, he was literally on trial for his life. In April 1964, he delivered his famous “I Am Prepared to Die” speech, saying, “I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons will live together in harmony and with equal opportunities.” The judge was not impressed by Mandela’s vision—but his words rallied the world to his cause. It took years of sanctions and diplomatic pressure to win Mandela’s freedom and dismantle apartheid, but Mandela’s vision prevailed.

What is your vision for the future? What is the cherished ideal you would bet your life on? If you want to make a difference, if you want to make some history, then learn from Nelson Mandela. Communicate your leadership vision.

S
TEVE
J
OBS

A Dent in the Universe

There’s an old Wayne Gretzky quote that I love: “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.” And we’ve always tried to do that at Apple. Since the very beginning. And we always will
.

S
TEVE
J
OBS

S
teve Jobs didn’t set out to be a visionary. He once said that when he and Steve Wozniak cofounded Apple, “we were out to build computers for our friends. That was all. No idea of a company.”
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The first Apple computer, the Apple I, was hand-built by Wozniak in 1976. The introverted Wozniak (nicknamed “Woz”—rhymes with Oz) was the technical wizard. Jobs had a background in programming, but his real assets were extreme self-confidence, tons of ambition, and a charismatic personality.

Jobs and Wozniak demonstrated their first computer at the Homebrew Computer Club in Palo Alto in July 1976. The Apple I would not be recognizable as a computer today. It was a naked circuit board—the computer buyer had to purchase a power supply, keyboard, video display, and case in order to turn the Apple I into a working computer.

Steve Jobs came up with a “creative financing” scheme to get the company off the ground. He approached a local computer store chain, the Byte Shop, and talked the owner into ordering fifty Apple computers at $500 each, cash on delivery. Then he took the Byte Shop’s purchase order to an electronics supplier and talked the credit manager into selling him the parts on net-thirty-day terms, using the purchase order as proof of Apple’s ability to pay. Woz delivered the computers to the Byte Shop. Jobs collected the check, paid the parts supplier, and deposited a tidy profit in Apple’s bank account.

While Jobs and Wozniak were building their company, Steve Jobs’s visionary traits began to emerge. Jobs envisioned a true desktop computer for the masses, with the circuitry hidden inside a sleek plastic case—the Apple II. While seeking venture capital, Jobs met entrepreneur Mike Markkula, who invested $250,000 and became a one-third owner of Apple. Markkula helped Jobs and Wozniak take Apple from a partnership to a corporation.

Jobs unveiled the Apple II in April 1977—and the Apple II series would go on to a phenomenal seventeen-year run. The Apple II was so successful that, by the summer of 1979, copier behemoth Xerox offered to invest $1 million in Apple.

Jobs wanted Xerox’s money, but he wanted something else even more. Connecticut-based Xerox maintained a West Coast R&D division called Palo Alto Research Center, or PARC. Jobs wanted a peek behind the curtain at PARC. Xerox agreed to give Jobs a tour of the top-secret facility in return for an opportunity to buy 100,000 shares of Apple at ten dollars per share (a year later, those shares were worth eighteen times what Xerox paid).

At PARC, Steve Jobs witnessed a demonstration of a new programming language. The computer screen was arranged in boxes called “windows.” A point-and-click device called a “mouse” opened various “windows” and performed tasks on the screen. The PARC programmers called the system a “graphical user interface” or GUI (pronounced “gooey”).

The tech wizards at PARC saw no commercial application for the GUI. They just thought it was a cool gimmick. Jobs recalled, “It was like a veil being lifted from my eyes. I could see what the future of computing was destined to be.”
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Steve Jobs had just had a vision of the future—and his vision revolved around the graphical user interface. He realized that the next step in computing was not about keystrokes but mouse clicks.

And he was about to reinvent the future.

Steve Jobs was born in San Francisco in February 1955. His birth father, Syrian-born Abdulfattah “John” Jandali, and his birth mother, Joanne Carole Schieble, met as students. They put baby Steven up for adoption because Schieble’s parents opposed their relationship. Steven was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs. Years later, Steve bristled if anyone referred to the parents who raised him as his “adoptive parents.” He said (and rightly so), “They were my parents one thousand percent.”