Leadership: Nelson Mandela - A Reflection of Democratic Leadership

Running Head: LEADERSHIP: NELSON MANDELA
September 26
2018

LEADERSHIP: NELSON MANDELA 1
Leadership
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born on 18 July 1918 in village of Mvezo in Umtala. It was a
then part of South Africa’s Cape Province. Rolihlahla is a Xhosa term meaning
“troublemaker” was given to him for his childhood nature. Mandela’s early life was
dominated by the Thambu custom and taboo (BBC NEWS, 2013). He grew up with his two
sisters in the village of Qunu. Both his parents were illiterate but being a devout Christian, his
mother took him to a local Methodist school when he was seven years old. Then his mother
approached to the “Great Place”, a place at Mqhekezweni for his further studies. He did not
see his mother for a long time when he was there at the “Great Place”, he felt like Jongintaba
and his wife Noengland helped him to grow in appropriate environment as same as their son.
This also helped him to absorb essential skills to become a privy councillor for the Thambu
royal house, after that he started his secondary education at Clarkbury Methodist High School
in Engcobo in 1933. With the support of Jongintaba, Mandela started working on his BA
degree at University of Fort Hare in 1939. This was considered as an elite black institute with
approximately 150 students in Alice, Eastern Cape (Nelson Mandela Foundation, 2018).
Nelson Mandela married three times and was a father of six children. He also had 17
grandchildren. He first married to Evelyn Ntoko Mase from his homeland in Transkei in the
month of October of 1944. He went to jain after his marriage and when he came back he got
to knew that his firat wife had moved out and also had taken the children. Then he married to
Winnie Madikizela in 1958. She was the first black social worker that Johannesburg had. His
second marriage lasted until 1996. He was sent to Robben Island in 1962 so he missed his
children’s up-bringing. After this on his 80th birthday he married to his third wife Graca
Machel in 1998 (Aberdeen, 2013).

LEADERSHIP: NELSON MANDELA 2
In 1994, first act of the newly elected assembly was to elect Nelson Mandela as South
Africa’s first ever black chief executive in the form of their president. Mandela leaded the
Government of National Unity. At that time he was 76 years old, he felt so many ailments.
He exhibited a continued energy but he felt isolated and lonely at times. During his leadership
he met with the Queen Elizabeth II during his state visit to South Africa in March 1995. He
stepped out as president in 1999 after his one successful term of president. In his lifelong
political career from joining ANC youth league in 1944 to the successful term of president he
showed wonderful leadership qualities. From the time of fighting for peace, winning over
enemies with his smile, embracing forgiveness and always demonstrating a positive attitude
towards a master plan he became an inspirational leader for the world. Inn his leadership
qualities there is a reflection of democratic leadership (Staff, 2013).
His democratic reflection in his leadership qualities shows his participative nature.
Democratic leadership as the name itself reflects, it is a participative or a shared leadership.
This is also known as most desirable leadership style for politics and basic rights (Cherry,
2018). This leadership can be described with the help of two different concepts. First one
states people elected or leaders acquired their position with the support of majority of their
society (Kaushik, 2017). Another concept states that leaders consider people even if they play
a role or not in their authority. In this leadership the concept of management and leading
behaviour with the underlings is mainly focused on:
 Involving people while making decisions
 At times of minimized running of command supervising the subordinates
 If subordinates are talented they does not induce any detailed work to them
 Democratic leaders can differentiate between opinions and plurality of opinions while
implementing the suggestions
 Leaders believe in decentralization