Invictus

Invictus, The movie

I have seen the movie Invictus before but did not realise it was such a treasure trove of leadership lessons. Here are a few incidents that shine throughout the movie. I mention them in order of their appearance in the movie-

1.    On his first day in office, President Mandela meets with his office staff and gives a speech to allay their fears and attempts to unite them. By doing this he demonstrates the strategy of creating trust (Bennis and Nanus, 1985), as mentioned in Northouse , 2016.

2.    In his selection of his bodyguards he attempts to create common ground for the team to be united. By doing this he creates a team spirit. One can sense the lessening of animosity among the bodyguards as the movie progresses.

3.    President Mandela sees the bigger picture, ‘conceptualization’ (Spears, 2002; as in Northouse, 2016, p.228) Spears mentions conceptualization in the context of servant leadership, but I believe it applies to all leadership models. A leader is one who has a vision, and sees the bigger picture. Nelson Mandela stands up against his own political party when he sees that their move to abolish the Springboks team’s colors and emblem would create more racial differences.

4.    He sees the opportunity to unite his country around the rugby World cup. He sends the white players into predominantly black neighborhoods to hold rugby ‘clinics’. In this situation he is a ‘social architect’ as per Bennis and Nanus (1985). He mobilizes the polarized black and white population to find common ground in the sport.

5.    He inspires the rugby team captain by inviting him for tea and motivating him to better himself. This translates further by the captain challenging his team to excel themselves. Here he demonstrates the practice of ‘inspire shared vision’ as per Kouzes and Posner (1987, 2002).

6.    Mr Mandela memorises the names of his team mates before he is due to meet them for the start of the tournament. With this he demonstrates his desire to engage and involve his followers.

7.    The team captain demonstrates discipline and focus. Before his big game, when is girlfriend comes to meet him, he holds her off. He does it so he can focus game.

In this move, the depiction of Nelson Mandela’s character is the epitome of a transformational leader. He possesses the characteristic charismatic behaviors as mentioned by Northouse (2016, p.164), based on House’s charismatic theory ( 1976) – he is a strong role model, appears competent to his followers, articulates ideological goals, has high expectations of followers arouses task relevant motives in his followers.

References

Bennis, W.G., Nanus, B. (1985). Leaders: The strategies for taking charge. New York: Harper & row.

Kouzes, J.M., & Posner, B.Z. (2002). The leadership challenge ( 3rd ed.(. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

Spears, L.C., (2002). Tracing the past, present and future of servant-leadership. In L.C. Spears & M.       Lawrence ( Eds), Focus on leadership: Servant-leadership for the 21st century ( pp. 1-16). New York: Wiley.

Eastwood, C. (Director) & Eastwood, C., McCreary, L., Lorenz, R., Neufeld.M Producers) (2009). Invictus. United States: Liberty Pictures.