Invictus and Dilemmas

INVICTUS Leadership Examples

1) Nelson Mandela is a perfect example of a great leader. After being in prison for 27 years, he managed to pull South Africa out of the crisis in which it was stuck because of  the Apartheid. Mandela claimed that before battling his enemy, he carefully learned about it carefully, therefore he was able to defeat it. Mandela held no regrets towards whites, he forgave them all; that is what made him so great. One of his quotes which I appreciated the most was: "Forgiveness liberates the soul, removes fear, and is therefore the most powerful weapon."

2) Pienaar, the team's captain, was a good leader since the beginning. Even though his team constantly lost, he still managed to cheer them up. He led them to victory thanks to The President's advice. He learned how to inspire himself and his teammates. At the end, the great effort payed off. In his meeting with the president he told him that he led by example, an idea which the President also agreed on. Pienaar knew how to manage external pressure of the country from all the people that wanted them to succeed. He even had to deal with his father's negativity on Madiba.

3) The guards also has an important role in the movie because they reflected the popular feeling that Whites and Blacks had towards each other. The Black ones were really reluctant to work with the new white guards at the beginning. Even though he felt resentment and anger toward the white guards, the black guards' leader always respected the white ones. He did't insult them nor fought with them, instead he did his job - organizing all of the president's security - even though he did not have an adequate attitude.

DILEMMAS
1) In my hometown's soccer team there was a big dilemma because the best player in the team's history who had already retired, was assigned as an assistant coach. The problem was that since he had always been a leader, when he returned to the team as a coach, he wanted to decide the tactics and way of playing of the team. The effect was that the team's players divided in two groups, the one with the new assistant, and the others with the original coach. The team lacked group unity and could not qualify to the playoffs because there was not only one leaded.

2) I go to a private school at Honduras, so many parents always want to get involved in conflicts concerning their children and they don't let the administrators decide how to solve the issues. I believe that this happens because we lack a true leader that can be able to manage and hold power over the parents. There is no member of the board courageous enough to say NO to parents when they want to get involved in school issues. This makes kids less humble and unable to learn how to behave because their consequences are not assigned correctly.