曼德拉的领导力进化史

尽管他并非完人，但或许正是因为他是个有缺点的人，纳尔逊•曼德拉成长为一位卓越领导者的历程更能带给人们启示。就像他自己说的那样，所谓圣人就是不断尝试的罪人。

纳尔逊•曼德拉在反对种族隔离的斗争中牺牲了家庭、舒适和职业成功等美好生活的传统标识，以一位良心犯的身份，度过了长达27年的牢狱之灾。1994年，他一跃成为肩负领导国家之责的南非总统。当选后，曼德拉选择了宽恕，而非为蒙冤过往复仇，进而帮助南非人构筑了一个全新的社会根基。

尽管被他的人民奉为国父，但仅仅完成一个任期后，他就主动交出权杖，而不是像许多非洲强人那样，终生紧握最高权力，一刻也不愿松手。

这难道不是唯有圣人才有的品质吗？许多人当然如是看待曼德拉。美国总统奥巴马最近称他为“最伟大的历史人物之一。”英国广播公司( BBC )认为他“或许是我们这个时代受到最广泛赞赏的人物。”2012年的一项研究显示，曼德拉已成为全球性品牌，知名度仅次于可口可乐(Coca-Cola)。”

但也有不同声音。身为南非种族隔离时代最后一位领导人的德克勒克声称：“我并不认同世人为曼德拉谱写的圣徒颂歌。与如今广泛描述的形象恰恰相反，他绝对不是一位慈爱如圣徒般的人物。”

这种直言不讳的观点出自德克勒克之口，应该不会让我们感到惊讶。尽管因废除种族隔离制度的贡献，他和曼德拉分享了诺贝尔和平奖，但两人终究是死敌，对于这位对手，曼德拉也几乎没有做出过正面的评价。但就自己获得的圣徒美誉这一点而言，曼德拉其实同意德克勒克的观点：“我不是救世主，而是一位因特殊情势演变为领导者的普通人。”

事实上，在曼德拉的自传《漫漫自由路》(Long Walk to Freedom)中，除了通常以他为主角、充满盛赞之辞的头条新闻外，我们其实还可以发现他犯下的许多错误。

曼德拉是一位差劲的学者，一位在课堂上如坐针毡的法律系学生。1962年，他开始拥抱暴力，创建了非洲人国民大会(ANC)的秘密武装力量“民族之矛”(Spear of the Nation)，随后展开一系列针对政府的游击战争，并远航至埃塞俄比亚学习枪械使用技能。1994年南非首次民主选举期间，为确保非国大获得压倒性胜利，他四处游说，试图把选民的最低年龄从18岁降至14岁，还援引一个极其可疑，包括朝鲜、伊朗和古巴在内的五国名单作为先例。这个举动遭到了广泛的批评。

1991年，他前往赞比亚，要求赞比亚人选举肯尼思•卡翁达重新执掌最高权力，尽管在长达27年的独裁统治之后，卡翁达当时已完全丧失了民心。卡翁达最终落败。担任总统期间，曼德拉政府在很大程度上忽视了艾滋病在南非的病毒式蔓延。到他退休的时候，南非成年人的艾滋病感染人数已攀升至11.7%这一令人震惊的比例。

也许是由于这个时代过于渴望完美无瑕的英雄人物，我们急匆匆地把曼德拉抬上了一座他本人并不认可的偶像神坛。

然而，在深入挖掘的过程，我们发现曼德拉给予我们的启示远不止于此，这一切取决于我们如何定义卓越的领导力。

有人曾经问曼德拉，他是不是因为教师的种族歧视，才没有学好法律。“是的，我的老师确实是一个种族主义者，但这并不是我没有学好法律的原因。”他知道，他必须为自己的表现承担责任。曼德拉在罗本岛服刑期间坚持自学，还组织其他犯人一起学习。即使囚犯们被迫去采石场从事一整天的辛苦劳作时，每个工作队都被安排了一位向他们传授历史、经济学和政治学等学科的讲师。这些囚犯称其为“罗本岛大学”。他后来回忆说：“为了学会如何成为一个好学生，我必须去蹲大牢。”

曼德拉在狱中专心致志地学习他的压迫者（即南非白人，又称布尔人）的语言和历史，甚至还帮助一些狱警撰写要求升职的信函。

被捕入狱前，他曾经在一位朋友的庄园里躲避过一段时间。有一次，他使用一支气步枪射杀了一只麻雀，非常骄傲地展示了一下他的枪械技能。结果当他转身向朋友的儿子吹嘘时，这位年仅5岁的小男孩泪眼婆娑地对他说：“你为什么要杀死那只鸟啊？它的妈妈会难过的。”曼德拉反省道：“我觉得这个小男孩比我更为人性。对于一支新生游击队的领导者来说，这是一种奇怪的感觉。”

卓越的领导者把人生视作一所学校。他们总是在学习。没有什么情势——狱中的一天，一个小孩的斥责——是微不足道，无关紧要的。

像美国的马丁•路德•金一样，曼德拉起初拥抱的是甘地的非暴力理想。他后来忍痛放弃了这个理念，创办了非洲人国民大会的武装力量。“甘地仍然致力于非暴力理想；我尽可能长时间地追随甘地的战略，但我们的斗争后来迎来一个节点，压迫者的野蛮暴行再也无法仅仅通过消极抵抗来还击。我们选择采取破坏行动，因为这种策略不会造成生命的损失，它是未来种族关系最大的希望所在。”

后来，曼德拉承认非国大的行动导致了一些侵犯**的事件，并对那些不肯承认这一点的党内人士提出了批评。

在非国大执行委员会抨击他要求降低选民年龄至14岁的立场之后，他选择了退让，并在日记中写道，“我做出了一个严重的误判。”

卡翁达落选后，曼德拉再次来到赞比亚，对公众说：“我此前选择支持对象的行为是错误的。我知道，赞比亚曾经为南非解放做出过不可估量的牺牲，肯尼思•卡翁达博士当时是国鲜花首。我此前的姿态看起来似乎是，为我们的斗争事业提供帮助的仅仅是卡翁达博士一人，而不是全体赞比亚人民。虽然我们或许可以选择卡翁达博士提供的卓越领导力，但谁应该当选，可不能由我自己来确定。”

辞去总统后，曼德拉终于如梦方醒地意识到艾滋病的祸害。他积极发声，强调检测和治疗的必要性，承认他的政府没有把艾滋病作为一个重大优先事项是个错误。此外，他还打破禁忌，透露称他的儿子正是死于艾滋病并发症，并以此为契机教育他的人民，有必要公开探讨、应对这个问题。

卓越的领导者敢于迎接巨大的挑战，在前行的道路上，他们有时会犯下严重的错误。他们的伟大之处在于他们始终致力于辨别是非。当他们发现自己犯下错误时，他们承认自己的过失，纠正航向，然后继续前进。

但曼德拉不只是满足于承认自己的缺点——他还积极地致力于消除这些缺点。

他在狱中努力培养对自己满腔怒火的自我控制力。有一次，被激怒的曼德勒差点暴力攻击一位监狱官员，但最终只是口头攻击了一下。那天返回牢房后，他开始反思：“尽管我让监狱官闭上了嘴，但他已经让我违背了我的自我控制原则。这一次，我认为我败在了对手的手中。”

后来，他在《奥普拉•温弗瑞秀》( The Oprah Winfrey Show)反思说：“要是我没有进监狱，我就不能完成世间最困难的事情——改变自己。”

一路走来，他真的变了吗？有一次，在回到自己小时候长大的村庄参加一个葬礼时，曼德拉陷入了沉思：“如果一个人试图发现自己在哪些方面有所变化，再也没有比返回一个保持未变的地方更好的方式了。我意识到，我自己的人生观和世界观已经发生了演变。”

狱友不断透露的细节让我们得以了解，在罗本岛服刑的漫长岁月里，曼德拉是如何逐渐成为一位情绪更加平静，思想更加集中，更有耐心的领导者——一位南非迫切需要的领袖。

这正是卓越领导者的不平凡之处——他们视自己为“一件正在演变的半成品”，他们不断地塑造自己，逐步接近自己的理想形态。结果就是，他们对世界的影响呈指数级增长。

在一封写给妻子温妮的信中，当时还在狱中的曼德拉写道：“永远不要忘记，所谓圣人就是不断尝试的罪人。”

曼德拉的崇拜者遍布全球，对他们而言，曼德拉的最大贡献也许是，他促使我们意识到每个人都具备实现卓越的潜能。像曼德拉一样，我们唯一需要做的就是，不停地尝试。

本文作者希滕德拉•瓦德瓦是哥伦比亚大学商学院全职非终身教授、个人领导力研究所创始人。

Nelson Mandela sacrificed the usual trappings of a good life – family, comfort, professional success – to spend 27 years as a prisoner of conscience in his fight against apartheid. He emerged to lead his nation as its president in 1994 and chose to forgive rather than seek revenge for past crimes, helping South Africans build a new social foundation.

After only one term in office, despite being viewed as a father of his nation by his people, he chose to hand over the reins of power voluntarily rather than keep a lifelong grip as many other strong leaders have sought to do in Africa.

Is this not the makings of a saint? Many of us have certainly viewed Mandela as such. President Obama recently called him "one of the greatest people in history," the BBC described him as "perhaps the most generally admired figure of our age," and a research study in 2012 established Mandela as the second-most-well-known brand in the world, after Coca-Cola (KO).

And yet, there are dissenting voices. F.W. de Klerk, the last apartheid-era leader of South Africa, said, "I do not subscribe to the general hagiography surrounding Mandela. He was by no means the avuncular and saint-like figure so widely depicted today."

Coming from de Klerk, this unflattering view should not surprise us. Though he shared the Nobel Prize with Mandela for their work in dismantling apartheid, they were fierce opponents, and Mandela too had few positive things to say about his adversary. But on the point of his own sainthood, Mandela actually agreed with de Klerk: "I was not a messiah, but an ordinary man who had become a leader because of extraordinary circumstances."

Indeed, there are many markers on Mandela's "Long Walk to Freedom" -- beyond the glowing ticker-tape headlines we normally associate with him -- that demonstrate his fallibility.

Mandela made for a poor scholar, struggling through his classes as a law student. In 1962, he embraced violence, founding Umkhonto we Sizwe -- Spear of the Nation -- the ANC's armed wing, which launched guerrilla attacks on the government, and journeyed to Ethiopia to learn how to use firearms. During South Africa's first democratic elections in 1994, he actively canvassed for lowering the voting age from 18 to 14 years to ensure a strong win for the ANC, citing as precedents a questionable list of five countries that included North Korea, Iran, and Cuba -- a move that was widely criticized.

In 1991, he traveled to Zambia and asked its people to vote Kenneth Kaunda back into power, even while Kaunda was very unpopular at that time after a 27-year dictatorship. Kaunda ended up losing. And as president, Mandela presided over an administration that largely ignored the AIDS epidemic in South Africa, with a shocking 11.7% of South African adults infected with the virus by the time he retired.

Perhaps in our yearning for perfect heroes, we have rushed to place him on a pedestal that he himself recognized was not appropriate.

But when we dig deeper, we find there is much more to him, and it all hinges on how we define great leadership.

Mandela was once asked if he did poorly as a law student because of racism among the faculty "Yes, I did have a racist lecturer, but that is not why I didn't do well." He knew he had to take responsibility for his performance. When he was a prisoner on Robben Island, Mandela organized a process for educating himself and other prisoners. Even as prisoners were forced to go out to the limestone quarry for a day of hard labor, each working team was assigned an instructor who taught them history, economics, politics, and other disciplines. They called it "Island University." He later reflected, "I had to go to prison in order to learn how to be a good student."

While in prison, Mandela focused on learning the language and history of his oppressors, the Afrikaaners, and then even helped certain prison guards write their letters for promotion.

Once, when he was in hiding at a friend's estate prior to his arrest and imprisonment, he shot and killed a sparrow with an air rifle in a prideful display of his firearms skills. As he turned to boast , his friend's five-year-old son turned to him with tears in his eyes and said, "Why did you kill that bird? Its mother will be sad." Mandela reflected, "I felt that this small boy had far more humanity than me. It was an odd sensation for a man who was the leader of a nascent guerrilla army."

Great leaders approach life as a school. They are always learning. No situation -- a day in prison, a scolding from a child -- is too inconsequential.

Like Martin Luther King in America, Mandela had initially embraced Gandhi's ideals of non-violence. He only reluctantly parted with this philosophy to start the armed wing of the ANC. "Gandhi remained committed to nonviolence; I followed the Gandhian strategy for as long as I could, but then there came a point in our struggle when the brute force of the oppressor could no longer be countered through passive resistance alone. We chose sabotage because it did not involve the loss of life, and it offered the best hope for future race relations."

Later, Mandela admitted that the ANC's actions led to some human rights abuses, and criticized those that refused to acknowledge it.

After the executive committee of the ANC attacked his position on lowering the voting age to 14, he backed down, and wrote in his diary, "I have made a grave error of judgment."

When Kaunda lost the vote in Zambia, Mandela went back to Zambia and said to the public, "I was wrong to have chosen sides ... I know that Dr. Kenneth Kaunda was the head of state when Zambia sacrificed immeasurably for the liberation of my country. I made it appear as though it was only Dr. Kaunda and not the whole country of Zambia that helped in our struggles. While there is room for us to single out the great leadership that Dr. Kaunda offered, it was not for me to determine who was to be elected."

And after resigning as president, Mandela did finally awaken to the scourge of AIDS. He took on an active voice in highlighting the need for testing and treatment and acknowledged that his administration had been wrong in not making it a bigger priority. And, breaking a taboo, he revealed that his son had died from complications related to AIDS, using the occasion to educate his people about the need to talk openly and deal with this problem.

Great leaders take on great challenges, and along the way they sometimes make great mistakes. Their greatness lies in how committed they remain to discerning right from wrong. When they find they have erred, they acknowledge their lapse, correct their course, and move on.

But Mandela was not just satisfied with acknowledging his flaws -- he actively worked on eliminating them.

In prison, he worked hard to cultivate more self-control over his anger. Once, he nearly physically attacked a prison official upon being provoked, ultimately assaulting him verbally. That day, he returned to his cell and reflected, "Even though I had silenced Prins, he had caused me to violate my self-control and I consider that a defeat at the hands of my opponent."

Later, he reflected on The Oprah Winfrey Show, "If I had not gone to prison, I would not have been able to do that which is the most difficult -- to change yourself."

Along the way, did he actually change? On one occasion, returning to his boyhood village to attend a funeral, Mandela reflected, "There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered. I realized that my own outlook and world views had evolved ..."

Stories from fellow prisoners abound about how, over the course of many years on Robben Island, Mandela gradually became a calmer, more centered, and more patient leader -- a leader South Africa dearly needed.

This is what great leaders do -- they see themselves as a work in progress, and they sculpt themselves to get progressively closer to their ideal form. And their impact on the world, as a result, grows exponentially.

In a letter Mandela wrote from jail to his wife Winnie, he wrote, "Never forget that a saint is a sinner who keeps trying."

To his legion of admirers around the globe, perhaps Mandela's greatest contribution is to awaken us to our own potential for greatness. All we need to do, like Mandela, is to keep trying.

Hitendra Wadhwa is Professor of Practice at Columbia Business School and the founder of the Institute for Personal Leadership.