I Know This to Be True: Nelson Mandela

By Geoff Blackwell and Ruth Hobday

The I Know This to Be True series is a collection of extraordinary figures from diverse backgrounds answering the same questions, as well as sharing their compelling stories, guiding ideals, and insightful wisdom.

Incarcerated for more than twenty-seven years, Nelson Mandela's enduring faith and rise to leadership remains an inspiration to all.

With stories from his closest colleagues paired with his own words, this book explores the many challenges Mandela faced and the guiding principles that enabled him to lead a country away from violence to peace and democracy.

• Anti-apartheid revolutionary Nelson Mandela devoted his life to ensuring liberation, equality, and justice for the people of South Africa
• A moving and prescient reminder of the power of persistence, conviction, and forgiveness
• The landmark book series brims with messages of leadership, courage, compassion, and hope

Inspired by Nelson Mandela's legacy and created in collaboration with the Nelson Mandela Foundation, I Know This to Be True is a global series of books created to spark a new generation of leaders.

This series offers encouragement and guidance to graduates, future leaders, and anyone hoping to make a positive impact on the world.

• Mandela's legacy encourages every reader to find and nurture the leader within

• Royalties from sales of the series support the free distribution of material from the series to the world's developing economy countries
• Great for those who loved Letters of Note: An Eclectic Collection of Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience by Shaun Usher, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela by Nelson Mandela, and Conversations with Myself by Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chronicle Books Digital
• Release date: Mar 24, 2020
• ISBN: 9781797203362

Geoff Blackwell

Ruth Hobday and Geoff Blackwell are the creative team behind such bestselling projects as Nelson Mandela's Conversations with Myself. Worldwide travelers, they are based in New Zealand.

Book preview

Introduction

This little book is the result of years of discussion between the two of us, and dialogue with others, about the question of what lessons the leadership of Nelson Mandela offers. Not everyone can endure more than twenty-seven years in prison. Not everyone can lead a liberation movement. Not everyone can be president. But what can anyone take from Mandela’s example in order to find the leader inside themselves? This question has challenged us through a decade of leadership development endeavour. One of us, Verne, worked in African National Congress structures while Mandela led a complex negotiation process with the apartheid state. Both of us worked in government when Madiba was president of South Africa.i One of us, Sello, held a senior position in the South African Human Rights Commission at a time when Madiba was using his influence as a leader to challenge structures of power on a range of issues close to his heart. Both of us became employees of his post-presidential office. Both of us worked on the formation of his private archive, read deeply in it, and engaged him personally in the process. This little book represents what we’ve learned.

Sello Hatang and Verne Harris

‘The world is full of people with natural leadership qualities.’

– Nelson Mandela

Prologue

It is 1986. South Africa is in a State of Emergency which will hold the country in a vice-like grip for another four years. Nelson Mandela is in Pollsmoor Prison near Cape Town,ii newly separated from other long-term political prisoners and beginning to engage senior representatives of the apartheid regime in preliminary ‘talks about talks’.iii It is a moment fraught with danger for Mandela. He has made the first moves without consulting his colleagues and then continues against their counsel and with very little access to the leadership of his organization (the African National Congress) outside the country. The regime deploys intelligence operatives, psychiatrists and other analysts to extract maximum advantage from the moment. They document everything Mandela is doing and record all his conversations.

For Mandela the leader, this is a point of no return. If he allows the regime to drive a wedge between him and the external leadership, or if he makes unsanctioned concessions, or if the process he is leading unravels parallel processes being overseen by the African National Congress (ANC), then he will be fatally compromised. Colleagues in the movement who know about the process worry for him. They fear the worst. Arguably the whole trajectory of his life hinges on this moment.

Mandela does not falter.

‘He didn’t make a false step,’ recalled George Bizos many years later. Bizos was one of Mandela’s lawyers, visiting him frequently at the time and providing a vital conduit between him and the ANC leadership in exile. ‘He was completely in charge.’¹

‘The mark of great leaders is the ability to understand the context in which they are operating and act accordingly.’

– Nelson Mandela

A Great Leader

What made Nelson Mandela the leader he became? Why did he become a global icon of great leadership? Was it because he never put a foot wrong? Did he have almost saintly qualities