This month I thought we would take a look at one of the leaders I greatly respect: Nelson Mandela. Nelson Mandela International Day was celebrated earlier this week on the 18th, his birthday, and as it has been every year for the past decade or so it’s always inspiring to be reminded of the work he did and life he lived and what we can learn from it. Whenever you look back at a leader from history (in this singular case defined as before internet existed or was really a thing) like Mandela or Dr. King or Lincoln or even Washington, I sometimes wonder how their impact would have changed or exploded if they would have done if they had internet. But it’s also impressive that the words they spoke, the experiences they had still speak to us today, are still relatable today.
Mandela’s story largely begins where many stories begin: with the decision to become better educated, and in his case he studied law. But Mandela’s story doesn’t stop with studying law when he was young and before he got into trouble/good trouble, it was something he pursued as seriously as he could throughout the years he spent in prison. Why? Because not only was it a good way to pass the time, a more educated person always has a better opportunity to connect with someone and understand what’s going on in the world. Mandela’s a great example to look at when it comes to education because he proves that you can learn even with lots of other stuff going on in your life. In his case it was the restrictions he had while he was in prison, but for us that’s the responsibilities we have in running our businesses. Even if you know you don’t have a ton of time each week to learn, subscribe to a handful of curated email newsletters (including like mine) that can keep you up to date on what’s going on and what might help you grow your business.
Which ties in with our next lesson, which is the importance of building relationships. Mandela was a master at building relationships, being willing to talk with anyone and one of the most important things it takes to have true relationships: willingness to listen and work together. One of the keys that helped Mandela do so well with relationship building, is that it wasn’t about politics, it was truly about working together for a better future, which is always a better foundation to build a relationship on than politics. Throughout his years in prison and then when he was President of South Africa and beyond Mandela made a point of getting to know people and the sheer numbers of people who honored him when he passed, speaks to exactly how effective he was at building relationships. His two keys to success can be ours as well: listen and be willing to work together for good.
Third, one of the funniest things I found in my research was that there 80% satisfaction rating for his presidency. If a president, someone in politics, can gain an 80% rating, can’t we do the same in our much less controversial fields of business? No, everyone won’t always love you or what you do or what you offer and you won’t always get it right, but that’s something that even Mandela recognized and accepted. But as I’ve dealt with more customer service issues this past week, I’ve been reminded that we shouldn’t be striving for an 80% rating once, we should be striving for that positive of a rating (or better!) all the time, which means continually working on it. And that high satisfaction rating should encourage you to keep those customers happy and engaged with your business, and you focused on making your business the best it can be for those customers.
Fourth, we can learn our place from Mandela. Mandela, like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr and so many others recognized that it was highly unlikely that he would solve all the problems he set out to fix in his lifetime. The fact is that even with the likelihood that many people today live beyond their 85th birthday, it still takes a long time for true transformation to take place. With all the setbacks and struggles that he experienced in life, it’s pretty incredible that Mandela accomplished as much as he did, and that impact was honored when he was given the title of the Father of the Nation. Now, I’m not great at history or keeping track of history’s timeline, but I’m positive that South Africa was formed and existed hundreds of years before Mandela was born. So it doesn’t matter at what point you come into the transformation, your job is to keep that transformation going, add the experience you can to things and be the leader that will help things get to the next step of progress.
Our final lesson for today comes from the fact that his life sentence was reduced to a 27 year sentence. One of the most important things I think we’re here to do as leaders is to bring hope and to never give up on being able to do better and be better for the people we’re leading. How do we keep the hope alive? With a change in perspective. Focus on one more happy customer, one more person who is passionate about your brand, one more person with a great skill set who comes on board with your team, one more year of helping people, one more person who you were able to help with an issue and therefore able to keep as a satisfied customer, one more person whose life you have made better. Focus on growing and being the best leader you can, not on the obstacles that are stopping you from being the leader you may dream about being of the business you dream about having. The best way to make your dreams a reality is one day, one person, one conversation at a time.
What wisdom have you learned from Nelson Mandela’s incredible life?