The Leadership We Need: Lessons for Today from Nelson Mandela

by Andrew Russell

In these current times of global strife and uncertainty, we need role models we can turn to for inspiration, guidance, and genuine leadership. Now more than ever, we need to take stock and push the default setting button. The default setting for global leadership in modern times is Nelson Mandela. His is the leadership we need.

Mandela was a unique leader: the simple rural boy who selflessly endured what he did in life to become, in the end, a reluctant president. In the book Conversations with Myself, he said, ‘My installation as the first democratically elected President of the Republic of South Africa was imposed on me much against my own advice.’

Now, more than ever before, we need to remind ourselves of what qualities he possessed, and how we can learn from his example and become better people and leaders ourselves.

This is a book full of hope, a place for all of us to draw strength from the life of Nelson Mandela, the rural Eastern Cape boy who became president. It is a book for people of all ages, learners and educators, leaders and followers.