The Transcendent Leadership of Nelson Mandela

There are many leaders and historical figures who deserve esteem and admiration for one reason or another. One person who undoubtedly embodies the virtues of great leadership is Nelson Mandela. His intellect, wisdom, charisma, and ability to show grace in the midst of a veritable crisis—and many crises did he face—are extraordinarily rare.

On July 18, we celebrated International Nelson Mandela Day, and in reflecting on his life and legacy, I want to highlight some of his many virtues and achievements. Despite the circumstances of apartheid and the treatment he endured for decades, Mandela treated others with great compassion and respect and carried himself with the utmost dignity. Not only was he an excellent leader, he was also a “Jedi master” in many respects. Psychologists have argued that he attained a level of adult maturity and emotional development that only 1% of humans ever reach. More on that later. Suffice it to say that throughout much of his life, Mandela minimized the pursuit of his own self-interest for the sake of his core values and the larger struggle for human dignity and equality for all people.

In this newsletter, I discuss the uniqueness of Mandela’s life, the circumstances that enabled him to transcend to the highest stage of emotional maturity, and the lessons we can learn from his leadership and selflessness to inspire and uplift us today.

Mandela’s formative years

Nelson Mandela (née Rolihlahla Mandela) was born on July 18, 1918, in the small village of Mvezo in the Transkei district of the Eastern Cape of South Africa. It was less than a decade after the British had defeated the Boer and African kingdoms, established the Union of South Africa as part of the British Empire, and started restricting the rights of non-Whites across the entire country, including disenfranchising them. The African National Congress (ANC) had been established as the political party “to bring all Africans together as one people to defend their rights and freedoms,” and World War I was coming to an end.

Mandela was a Tembu, one of the groups of the Xhosa-speaking people. While his family was technically tribal royalty and accorded great respect by the Tembu people, their authority and wealth had diminished after the formation of the Union, and during his childhood, they were fairly poor.

Polygamy was common in the region then, and since Mandela was the son of his father Hendry’s third wife (of four), he had a large extended family of stepmothers and half-siblings. Though he called polygamy “quite inexcusable” as an adult, he also credited his experience of being loved by four mothers living among a close-knit farming community with giving him a great sense of security, simplicity, and shared responsibility—values which he no doubt carried with him throughout his life.

Because of Mandela’s family’s royal status, he had access to good education opportunities. In 1939, he attended South African Native College—one of few racially integrated South African universities to admit Black students since the passage of the 1937 laws compelling segregation between African and White residents in cities. As such, the school was a beacon for the Black intellectual elite and tribal royalty. It was there that Mandela showed some of the first signs of his leadership and integrity: Despite being one of six students elected to the Students’ Representative Council, he resigned after learning that three-quarters of the student body had boycotted the vote, which meant only one-quarter of the student body was represented by the results. He maintained his resignation even with the threat, and eventual assurance, of his expulsion. Talk about early evidence of principles!

After he was expelled, Mandela moved to Johannesburg for a job as a mineworker. Having decided, however, that he wanted to become a lawyer, he soon started working under Lazar Sidelsky, a partner in a Jewish law firm, while completing his studies on the side. Mandela later credited Sidelsky, who ultimately hired Mandela as an apprentice when he finished his undergraduate degree in 1941, as being “the first White man who treated me as a human being” and who “trained me to serve our country.”

Rising up in the ANC

During World War II, seeing the increased demand for skilled Black labor at home due to many White workers joining the war effort abroad, Afrikaner nationalists started demanding apartheid—literally meaning “separateness” and practically meaning racial segregation. (Afrikaners are a predominantly White South African ethnic group descended from Dutch settlers.) These efforts reenergized a then-dormant ANC and its platform of Black resistance, which caught the attention of socially minded young adults like Mandela. He started attending ANC meetings in 1942 and soon joined a small group of men to create the ANC Youth League to help plan and lead mass protests.

They formally launched the Youth League in 1944 and immediately started pushing the ANC to embrace more disruptive political tactics, such as civil disobedience campaigns, strikes, and boycotts, rather than keeping to the organization’s moderate practices of issuing petitions and organizing delegations, which in Mandela’s mind weren’t moving the needle. This was just the start of his long and influential tenure within the ANC—just one example of his deep commitment to cause over self, to the organization over any individual.

By 1950 and throughout the rest of the decade, apartheid became official government ideology, complete with the enactment of numerous laws designed to repress Black South Africans. At the same time, Mandela’s profile in Johannesburg started to grow. He took on more leadership in the ANC and helped lead important campaigns of resistance to the government’s laws, including what became known as the Defiance Campaign—the first large-scale, multiracial political mobilization against apartheid laws—which resulted in his arrest and eventual charge of high treason. He was also instrumental in creating the Freedom Charter, which was a set of human rights principles written by the Congress Alliance within the ANC that supported the abolition of racial discrimination and oppression and aimed to ensure, Mandela wrote, that “all our citizens enjoy equal rights to their languages, culture and religious freedoms.”

Living by principles

That particular point—“all our citizens”—was important to Mandela. Over the course of his lifetime fighting for social justice and equal rights, he maintained a position not always supported by his peers: that the goal was to achieve a truly equitable, multiracial South Africa that provided equal rights for Black and Indian South Africans but without exterminating the rights of White citizens.

In a statement of defense Mandela wrote for himself during his treason trial in the 1960s, he explained his political philosophy, including its roots in African nationalism and his evolution to multiracialism. Rather than revolution, Mandela envisioned “universal franchise” where the government granted voting rights to more and more segments of society, eventually resulting in democratic rule. He wanted a classless society and was contemptuous of imperialism, which he believed was responsible for “subjugating people and exploiting them, bringing death and destruction.”

He did not pander to White rule in the slightest—quite the contrary—but he consistently underscored the need for reconciliation, mutual respect, and the acknowledgement of a shared humanity, which included people of all races in South Africa and negated the domination of any single race. When on trial for sabotage in 1964, Mandela concluded his defense with a statement that would be remembered for decades:

And he was prepared to die for the cause, despite great sacrifice to himself and his family. Following this trial, he was sentenced to life in prison at Robben Island, one of the harshest prisons in the world—what some call the South African equivalent to Alcatraz. In one letter he wrote to his daughter after several years in prison, he said, “I do not want to come to the point where I regret what I am doing. What I need to do is worthwhile, not only for you and the rest of the family but for all black people.”

Somehow, despite the personal hardships he and his family endured, and despite the setbacks the South African authorities delivered time and again to the ANC and the fight against apartheid, Mandela managed to maintain a long view. He did not take the “easy” way out when it was offered to him—and it was. Throughout the 1980s and 90s, the government offered him release from prison several times, but always on the condition that he would renounce certain political tactics of the ANC. He refused every time. “I am not prepared to sell the birthright of the people to be free,” he wrote in a 1985 statement refusing the government’s offer. “I cannot and will not give any undertaking at a time when I and you, the people, are not free. Your freedom and mine cannot be separated.” Again, talk about principles.

His firmness of character and resolution to find common ground with those around him garnered respect nearly everywhere, including in prison. While at Robben Island, Mandela realized that if the prisoners treated the guards (who were White) with genuine respect, the guards could, over time, be made to understand the evils of apartheid. He applied the same idea to his interactions with rebels and his political opponents in prison, recruiting young men from opposing groups onto prison sports teams that, initially split by factions, he worked to integrate. Over time, Mandela became a respected authority to the rebels, who came to seek him out for both legal and personal advice.

In an analysis of Mandela’s behavior at Robben Island requested by the government, the report noted his idealism, joviality, and respectful, friendly nature. It said he was tactful, creative, and a practical problem-solver, skilled in integrative thinking. He believed self-motivation and self-discipline to be the determinants of success. Mandela showed no signs of bitterness toward Whites, though he was completely dedicated to his cause and the belief that he would eventually succeed. The report concluded that Mandela’s time in prison had actually increased his “charisma.”

It was this charisma, dedication, tact, creativity, and idealism that thrust Mandela ahead of other leaders in his era and enabled him to work with the many parties, factions, and individual actors necessary to succeed in bringing about the end of apartheid and oversee a successful governmental transition as president immediately after.

The five stages of adult development

Undoubtedly, people as principled, magnanimous, and compassionate as Mandela don’t come around every day. But just how common are they? It turns out, psychologists have looked into this.

In his research on adult development and emotional maturity, Harvard psychologist Robert Kegan has found there to be five stages of adult development or “orders of mind”:

• Stage 1 – Impulsive Mind

• Stage 2 – Imperial Mind

• Stage 3 – Socialized Mind

• Stage 4 – Self-Authoring Mind

• Stage 5 – Self-Transforming Mind

Stages 1 and 2 typically happen in early childhood and adolescence, when you’re dictated by your impulses and wants. There are adults, though—around 6% of the adult population—who never get past the Imperial Mind. (One recent U.S. president comes to mind.)

Stage 3, the Socialized Mind, is when you give significant weight to other people’s thoughts and often make decisions according to them. Most adults, roughly 58%, are in Stage 3. Their life choices are heavily influenced by the opinions and expectations of others (though they themselves would likely deny this).

Stage 4, the Self-Authoring Mind, means you’ve developed the courage to decide for yourself what is right and wrong, instead of looking to others. Around 35% of adults are in Stage 4.

Stage 5 is the Self-Transforming Mind, a sort of transcendence where one views oneself not as a focal subject but as an objective component of an entire system. Everything becomes about inclusion, solving the problem, and focusing on the good of the whole.

Less than 1% of adults reach Stage 5. Mandela was one of them.

When I asked Robert Kegan what determines whether someone gets past Stage 3 (which the majority of people are stuck in), he had a quick and unequivocal response: It’s about experiencing the right balance of adversity and support. Those who reach Stage 4, and especially Stage 5, have endured a certain amount of hardship and suffering, but they have also experienced incredible support from loving people in their lives.

According to Kegan’s research, if someone has copious support but no hardship, they don’t get the chance to “grow up” (think of recent debates around helicopter parenting and Gen Z). They don’t learn how to work through problems and hardships, and instead of developing the resilience that allows people to grow and learn from setbacks and suffering, they can be crushed by them. On the other hand, if someone has too much adversity without any support, it can harden them and make them bitter and antisocial. They become angry and resentful toward all of humanity. Thus, they lack the grace and compassion that people who receive support (even “too much” support) often have. To transcend to higher levels of adult development, people need a healthy proportion of both elements.

We can see that in Nelson Mandela’s life. In his early years, he was effectively a “golden child,” surrounded by a village of people who adored him. That extended to a degree through his schooling and college years, when he was an athletic, attractive, smart, and popular young man beloved by many. As he went out into the world, however, he faced numerous challenges, which only grew more intense as time went on. But because he had experienced such safety, love, and support as a child, and extraordinary hardship as an adult (concurrent with support from peers), he was able to achieve a level of transcendence that few ever do.

To be sure, a man as complex as Nelson Mandela cannot be reduced to a simple analysis. He was unique and special in a multitude of ways. Thus, it is difficult, if not impossible, to fully understand what gave him the incredible strength, grace, courage, and compassion that he showed throughout his life. But even without fully understanding him, we can certainly learn from him.

Continuing Mandela’s legacy

Nearly ten years ago, on December 10, 2013, more than 90,000 South Africans gathered at the FNB Stadium in Soweto outside of Johannesburg to mourn Mandela’s death. It was 20 years to the day since Mandela had been jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize with Frederik Willem “F.W.” de Klerk, his predecessor and long-time political opponent, in recognition of their efforts to peacefully lead South Africa out of apartheid and establish a multiracial democracy. “I believe that his example will . . . continue to inspire all South Africans to achieve his vision of non-racialism, justice, human dignity, and equality for all,” said De Klerk upon learning of Mandela’s death.

At the stadium, several dignitaries addressed the mourners, which included then-current and former heads of state or government from over 100 countries—one of the largest assemblages of world leaders in history. Delivering the eulogy, President Barack Obama said:

As a steady rain fell over the stadium, Obama continued: “On core principles he was unyielding . . . but he was not afraid to compromise for the sake of a larger goal. . . . Mandela’s greatest gift [was] his recognition that we are all bound together. . . . We can never know how much of this sense was innate in him, or how much was shaped in a dark and solitary cell.”

As Obama concluded his remarks, the crowd swayed, cheered, and danced in recognition of the global and enduring impact of Mandela’s life. “[His] passing is rightly a time of mourning, and a time to celebrate a heroic life,” said Obama. “But I believe it should also prompt in each of us a time for self-reflection. With honesty, regardless of our station or our circumstance, we must ask: ‘How well have I applied his lessons in my own life?’”

Mandela’s death was not the only moment we should have been prompted to reflect in this way. We should reflect often—perhaps right now. The world needs such reflection now more than ever.

This newsletter includes edited excerpts from a 2017 case study I co-wrote for the Harvard Kennedy School Case Program with Laura Winig, a senior case writer. If you’re interested in reading the full case study, please email my assistant, Louis Mitchell.

Much of the biographical information was found in Anthony Sampson’s book Mandela: The Authorized Biography (2011).