Leadership Lessons From Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela was quoted as stating, “It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You take the front line when there is danger. Then people will appreciate your leadership.” Individuals that are tasked with leading must always keep that quote in mind. Hunter & Waddell, authors of Toy Box Leadership: Leadership Lessons from The Toys You Loved as a Child, capture this principle in a series of lessons throughout the book. Of these salient lessons, two resonate unlike any others that will translate well with Transfer Students here at Winthrop University: Lite Brite (message) and Weebles (endurance).

Messages are in direct correlation with communication, as a matter of fact they are one and the same, and as a result messages play a salient role in the everyday lives of people. So this makes communication an

Hunter and Waddell (2008), used a quote from the former South African President in which he stated, “The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall” (166). Nelson Mandela faced a vast amount of hardship, including being imprisoned for nearly 27 years, and the most eloquent thing I recall hearing and reading about his story was that when he was released he was willing to forgive and work with the same people who hurt him. As leaders there will be times when the ones who we lead will reject our leadership, and that is okay. When this occurs, our endurance has to become active. We cannot stop leading because our students get tired, no, we have to carry the slack to ensure we can get them to cross the finish line. The takeaway message of this chapter was that, “Falling is a fact of life, but it doesn’t have to be the final fact. It all depends on your response to it. You can let failure grip you or you can get a grip on your failure” (Hunter & Waddell, 2008,