Nelson Mandela and Moses as Servant Leaders: A Trait Theory Analysis

Introduction

There are many theories of leadership, from Great Man theory to trait theory to situational theory. Though they differ in orientation, there is considerable overlap among them — because, at the end of the day, leaders tend to have certain things in common regardless of how they are approached. They are good communicators; they hold a vision they want to share; they tend to want to change a bad situation for the better; they put others first; they hold noble values and ideals; they are willing to sacrifice everything to reach their goal; and they give themselves over wholly to the vision and to whoever is willing to help bring it to fruition. Whether great leaders are born to lead, shaped by circumstance, or simply develop the traits characteristic of greatness is all open to interpretation. However, because great leaders do tend to share several traits, trait theory is an especially useful leadership framework from which to analyze two remarkable figures: Nelson Mandela and Moses.

If there is one trait that great leaders universally share, it is this: they are not there to serve their own interests but rather the interests of their people — those in their community, those who follow them, those who work for them, and those in need of their assistance. They put people before profits. They put people before their own lives. They place the vision they hold for their people above their own safety and security.

Nelson Mandela famously declared, "I am prepared to die," in 1964, in his most celebrated speech delivered at his trial just before he was sent to prison, where he would spend decades before his triumphant return. What was Mandela prepared to die for? He was prepared to die for the ideal he held in his head and in his heart. He stated to his judges: "I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons will live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal for which I hope to live for and to see realized. But, My Lord, if it needs to be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die" (Mandela, 1964). Mandela wanted whites and blacks in South Africa to live in harmony, and for that vision he was prepared to serve a harsh prison sentence. Yet his perseverance and commitment to the cause eventually led to his vision coming to fruition.

Mandela and Moses: Two Leaders Devoted to Their People

When Stanley Milgram conducted his experiments on obedience, he found that people were willing to follow a trusted authority so long as they believed that person knew what he was doing. Milgram (1974) showed that people would even harm others if an authority figure instructed them to do so. Such individuals could be called followers: they do not act on their own authority but surrender it to someone else and simply take orders from that person. Leaders are the opposite. They lead from an inner conviction that they are right. They lead because they know no other way to move through life. They must lead — everything within them compels them to do so — especially when they are confronted with the face of injustice, as was the case with both Mandela and Moses.

Moses was, in some ways, quite different from Mandela. Moses did not want to lead. He did not want to draw attention to himself. He was not even a strong public speaker and relied on Aaron to speak on his behalf. While it is not uncommon for leaders to have spokespeople — especially if they serve as heads of state, as Moses effectively did — it is somewhat unusual from a trait theory perspective that Moses should become the defining face of the Hebrew people without a natural inclination for public speaking or a strong desire to lead in the first place (Grimard & Morris, 2018). Mandela, by contrast, sought to lead; he saw the injustice in South Africa and moved to confront it. He fought against apartheid because he believed it was right. Moses also saw injustice — the way the Egyptians were treating the Hebrews — but his relationship to it was complicated by the fact that he himself was a Hebrew who had been raised as an Egyptian by adoption, allowing him a life of privilege while his own people suffered.

Still, Moses was not indifferent to the mission God called him to perform. He ultimately consented to do as God commanded, and this was no small task, for it required extraordinary bravery and strength of will to march before Pharaoh and announce that he must free the Hebrews or face the wrath of God. Moses may have been a reluctant leader at first, but his determination and courage were evident from the moment he accepted the task. His devotion to God was clear from that point forward — indeed, the first books of the Old Testament have traditionally been attributed to his authorship, a further indication of his deep conviction (Calvin, 2018). It is therefore not a stretch to identify conviction as the defining trait both Moses and Mandela shared: each was convinced of the fundamental truth of what he pursued. Mandela was convinced of the truth of his ideal for South Africa; Moses was convinced that the Hebrews must be freed and that God willed it and would protect His people.

Every great leader is dedicated to something beyond themselves. Even where the personalities of great leaders differ considerably, it is primarily the cause for which a leader stands that endures in memory. Gandhi had a very different personality from Malcolm X, yet both are remembered as great leaders because each believed in, lived for, and died for a cause. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Paine each had distinct personalities, yet all contributed to the struggle for American independence and the promotion of Enlightenment ideals. Of these, it was Thomas Paine who most wholeheartedly embraced those ideals. While other signers of the Declaration of Independence paid lip service to equality, Paine genuinely believed in it and was deeply troubled by the Founding Fathers' willingness to permit slavery in the new nation (Claeys, 2020). For Paine (1776), it was a matter of common sense that all people should be regarded as equal and free.

Mandela's vision was not substantially different from Paine's. He too believed in equality and fraternity, and his vision for South Africa resembled that of Martin Luther King Jr. in America — a vision of a people living in harmony as one community, rather than divided by racial politics and hatred. In his speech, Mandela made clear that he stood against the domination of any race over another. He was not a supremacist of any kind but a firm believer in equality who wanted all South Africans to live as equals. He held that vision from beginning to end, and when apartheid was finally dismantled, he was celebrated as a hero because it was his vision that had helped bring South Africa to that pivotal moment. Mandela's dream was of a multicultural South Africa in which every person of every background could find a place and live in peace (Radhakrishnan, 2019). Like any effective leader of a corporation or a nation, he communicated the vision, committed himself to it, and went to the wall for it, inspiring followers across the globe as he did so.

Great leaders never labor in vain, for even when they are imprisoned or killed, their words and vision live on, and the spirit they championed never truly dies. Even while locked away, Mandela remained present in the minds of South Africans and of all those who cared about equality and human dignity. His vision and his insistence upon it were so powerful that they transcended time, geography, and his own person. That capacity for transcendence is itself a common trait among great leaders: their focus reaches beyond the immediate and gravitates toward the universal. This is partly because, at bottom, great leaders are servant leaders, and it is the act of service to an idea, an ideal, or to the people who stand to benefit from change that produces that transcendent quality (Tanno & Banner, 2018).

Moses was less a visionary than a man on a mission. Where some leaders introduce an innovative and revolutionary vision to their time and place, others arrive with a defined mission and do not stop until it is accomplished. In either case, the commitment is the same: the leader would have to be dragged away before abandoning the vision or the mission. So it was for Mandela, and so too for Moses.

Moses' mission was not of his own devising but was given to him by God. Yet, like any good soldier, he made that mission his own. Josephus noted that Moses was a mighty warrior — and he was that even before he turned his energy toward God, having fought valiantly for the cause of the Egyptians (Church of Christ, 2020). Moses was not an insignificant figure. On the contrary, he had already proven his valor and determination. He was someone accustomed to receiving commands and carrying them out.

Mandela's Vision for Equality

What was new, however, was receiving commands not from men but directly from God. The mission God gave him at first seemed overwhelming. Moses did not feel worthy of it or suited for it. Yet God persisted, and Moses finally submitted — just as a soldier submits to a commanding officer. Moses then obeyed when God sent him to Egypt with the message to Pharaoh: "Then the LORD said to Moses, 'Go to Pharaoh and tell him that this is what the LORD says: Let My people go, so that they may worship Me'" (Exodus 8:1). He went not for his own sake but because he had been given a mission — one that could very well cost him his life. After all, he stood before the most powerful person in Egypt, just as Mandela would stand centuries later before the judges who held his fate. Moses, however, was not awaiting a verdict on his own life. He was standing before Pharaoh to deliver a demand, to convey a message from God to the mightiest ruler in Egypt. He was there on a mission.

Moses demonstrated the same intensity and commitment that Mandela showed in his dedication to his vision. The two leaders shared the same traits in this regard. Moses preferred not to speak in public, but when the mission required it, he set aside his own preferences and summoned the strength of will to get the job done. He returned to confront Pharaoh again and again. Lesser men might have fled, as Jonah did when God called him to go to Nineveh. Moses, once he accepted the mission, remained true to it and met Pharaoh repeatedly, insisting that suffering would follow if Pharaoh refused to submit to the God of the Hebrews.

Both Moses and Mandela were pursuing change — each in his own way and for his own people. Neither became a leader to seek celebrity or the limelight. They led because there was work to be done, a vision to be spread, a mission to be accomplished. They were transformational leaders just as much as they were servant leaders; indeed, leaders who pursue a vision or a mission tend to be transformational by nature and approach (Yaslioglu & Erden, 2018). Leaders need not conform to a single leadership style or model — the greatest among them often embody several at once.

From the perspective of the trait theory of leadership, it becomes clear that great leaders tend to possess similar traits, whether expressed through personality or through character. For Moses and Mandela, the similarities lay primarily in their characters and in their approaches to leadership. Each was dedicated to a vision or mission larger than himself. Each was committed to others — to their own people, to changing the conditions of life for the better, to a cause. They were servant leaders. They were transformational leaders. And they were, above all, devoted to something beyond themselves — which is perhaps the most enduring trait of greatness in any leader.

Calvin, J. (2018). Commentaries of the First Book of Moses Called Genesis. Lulu.com.

Conclusion

Yaslioglu, M. M., & Erden, N. S. (2018). Transformational leaders in action: Theory has been there, but what about practice? IUP Journal of Business Strategy, 15(1), 42–53.