Visionary Leadership of Nelson Mandela

Visionary Leadership
After being detained in prison for 27 years, Nelson Mandela walked out of Prison to lead South Africans in their quest to break free from Apartheid rule. He became the first Black president of the Republic of South Africa and led a robust reconciliation effort that helped Blacks and Whites in South Africa forgive one another and find common ground to work on to help build South Africa. For these efforts, Nelson Mandela won the Nobel Peace Prize. Nelson Mandela was born in 1918 in Transkei and went on to be a student of law at Fort Hare University. As the African National Congress (ANC) started gaining momentum in the early 1940s, he joined the movement to help resist the racist policies of the then ruling White government. The racist government policies would later be codified into Apartheid which proved to be a brutal and highly racist rule. The fight against Apartheid then became a life-long fight for Nelson Mandela. On helping end Apartheid, Nelson Mandela became the first post-apartheid president and retired just five years into office. He died in 2013 at the age of 95 (Averill, Khumalo & Hilse, 2019).
Mandela is regarded as one of the world’s most transformational visionaries. He brought his emotional, behavioral, and cognitive abilities to bear to help bring change to South Africa. As a visionary leader, Mandela’s ideas and deeds brought a lot of value to the fight against Apartheid. Some of the valuable gains because of his visionary leadership include:
a) Mandela had the vision to realize that no matter how much the Apartheid regime resisted change, the system would not survive into the future and would crumble as the world changed. He formulated plans in his prison cell to help speed up the end of Apartheid, set them into action, and anticipated the reactions. When President Botha offered him freedom with the demand that he renounces the opposition movement against the government, Mandela rejected the offer saying that it did not amount to freedom. He chose to serve out the rest of his prison term. With time, the world began to recoil against the Apartheid regime and local South African citizens and businesspeople began to push for change more aggressively.
b) Mandela inspired prison guards and other political prisoners by standing by his principles in prison. In spite of the very harsh life they led in prison, Mandela had the energy to challenge oppressive practices and always did what was right no matter the cost. His imprisonment in Robben Island was a stark reminder to South Africans and other people the world over of the state of Apartheid. When F.W. de Klerk succeeded Botha, he set into motion actions that led to the democratic elections of 1994 that led to Nelson Mandela becoming the first Black South African president. For their efforts to peacefully end Apartheid, Mandela and de Klerk were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
c) As a visionary, Mandela recognized the mistakes that were being made by the rule of Robert Mugabe and chose not to follow in the footsteps of their neighbors down south. Zimbabwe’s autocratic regime was costing the country dearly and Mandela recognized that South Africa had to embrace a more democratic and inclusive path. This path would involve peace and reconciliation between Blacks and Whites. Mandela said that despite the cruel things Whites had subjected Blacks to during Apartheid, Blacks had to surprise them with generosity and restraint. As a symbol of this new path, Mandela invited Robben Island prison guards to his swearing-in ceremony.
d) The assassination of Chris Hani in 1993 triggered widespread protests across South Africa in 1993. While many people were angry and wanted revenge for the assignation of the very popular Black leader, Mandela had the vision to aggressively push for calm and peace. Mandela also recognized that sports could play a big role in helping South Africans in their healing process. He said that few things could unite a people more than sports do. When South Africa was allowed to participate in the 1992 Olympics, Mandela changed his mind about opposing the majority white teams and instead decided to support them. He said that there was no doubt in his mind that he had made the right decision. As a visionary, he recognized that while the teams were then composed of White players, it was just a starting point and that they would reflect the true picture of South Africa as the society became more integrated.
e) On being elected president, Mandela made the announcement that he would be a one-term president even though the constitution allowed him to serve two terms. Knowing that his inauguration speech would be watched by over one billion people across the world, Mandela used the opportunity to preach peace and unity by using pronouns such as us, we, and our to help align all people towards the vision he had for South Africa.
f) For most of his early life, Mandela leaned more towards socialism than he did capitalism. However, on being released from prison, he recognized that Socialism was failing many nations and had the vision to see that South Africa would falter if it embraced socialism.
The environmental and business conditions organizations operate in today call for visionary leadership. There are a lot of variables organizations and institutions have to deal with as they operate in the real world. Mandela’s actions show how visionary and strategic leaders can execute and adjust their strategies amidst these legal, political, and social forces. There is more to leadership than motivating followers and giving orders. One must also create political support for the strategies they choose to pursue and take steps to maintain broad support for the successive adjustments they make to the original plan (Schoemaker & Krupp, 2014).
Most South Africans wanted a better life. Most Blacks did not have access to proper sanitation, health, housing, education facilities, and clean running water during the Apartheid regime. Mandela recognized the seriousness of this reality and promised South Africans a better life. A lot of progress has been made to make the lives of South Africans better even after Mandela left power. Some people make the argument that the ANC has not been as effective in pushing for a better life for all South Africans as when Mandela was still president. People are still loyal to the ANC, though, since they view it as the party of Mandela. ANC enjoys majority support of the population because of this reality (Cape Media, 2014). Even as Zuma’s popularity dimmed, the support for the ANC party remained high. Jacob Zuma was eventually ousted from the party’s leadership and this led to a series of events that led to the installation of Cyril Ramaphosa as president.
Visionary leaders have the ability to inspire people to action to solve problems they face and create a better life for themselves. This is true in private organizations as it is for governments. Visionary leadership creates longevity, excitement, and momentum. People love to work for a visionary leader who inspires them to use more of their talents and abilities. The tools for visionary leadership are inspiration, encouragement, and empowerment. Visionaries can take on many roles easily but still create amazing results for the organizations they lead. The essence of leadership as far as problem-solving is concerned is not to just solve problems but to find out why the problem arose in the first place. The ability to ask why over and over again is the root of most motivation since having a strong reason why something needs to be done creates a lot of motivation for workers handling a project (Kinsey, 2018).
Almost all organizations today need a visionary leader to succeed in today’s fast-paced and dynamic business environment. In fact, the most successful companies in the world today have been led by some of the world’s greatest visionaries. Apple was led by Steve Jobs, Amazon is led by Jeff Bezos, Facebook is led by Mark Zuckerberg, and Tesla is led by Elon Musk. A question arises as to whether or not only highly visionary people can create such tremendous success. Can a purely transactional leader bring the magnitude of success that has been seen in companies such as Amazon and SpaceX? It is a hard question to answer because of the survivor bias. We only get to hear of the success stories and fail to read of the many failures in business other ‘visionary people’ have gone through. Even then, the celebrated visionary leaders’ main proposition is not that they are visionary. They are meeting market needs but they are doing it in a visionary manner. Bill Gates’ main proposition was increased productivity, Steve Jobs main selling point was function and design, Jeff Bezos’ is speed, customer service, and price, while Elon Musk’s proposition is clean energy. The products they create are just tools to deliver their value propositions to the public. Nonetheless, it would be hard to compete with these companies if the competitors lacked visionary leaders. Therefore, in today’s business environment, organizations need to have visionaries on their teams (Haehnel, 2015).


References
Averill, V., Khumalo, T., & Hilse, G. (2019). Mandela, visionary of a free South Africa. Retrieved from https://www.dw.com/en/mandela-visionary-of-a-free-south-africa/a-44244155
Cape Media. (2014). The power of visionary leadership. Retrieved from http://www.leadershiponline.co.za/articles/the-power-of-visionary-leadership-16898.html
Haehnel, N. (2015). Do we need visionary leaders for innovative business models? Retrieved from http://blog.business-model-innovation.com/2015/05/do-we-need-visionary-leaders-for-innovative-business-models/
Kinsey, A. (2018). What is visionary leadership? Retrieved from https://bizfluent.com/info-8721665-visionary-leadership.html
Schoemaker, P., & Krupp, S. (2014). 6 principles that made Nelson Mandela a renowned leader. Retrieved from http://fortune.com/2014/12/05/6-principles-that-made-nelson-mandela-a-renowned-leader/