Invictus Thoughts and Reactions and Personal Leadership Dilemmas

1. Invictus

• The greatest example of leadership in Invictus is the way Nelson Mandela unified the people of South Africa during his presidency. The apartheid system caused much bitterness between the whites and blacks of Mandela’s country. The way that he went about alleviating that was very inspiring to me. While many would have used their political power to integrate the two groups of people and try to make them intermingle, he decided to use the power of sports to do so. This shows that he is a very unconventional leader. What I take from this is not that sports are a great way to unify people (though that is very true) but that the best way to achieve a goal is to do something unexpected yet subtle and let things play out on their own.
• Another example of leadership in the movie I found interesting was Mandela’s memorization of the rugby team members’ names. He hoped to get support from them and to invigorate them so they would have the enthusiasm to win. By memorizing their names he began the journey obtaining the team’s favor and towards winning the World Cup. What I take from this is that a leader must make his followers feel comfortable and welcomed in order to get them to be invested in what they do.
• Overall I really liked the movie. It is a story with which I was not familiar prior to now, and I am glad to know it now. There were so many great examples of leadership in it. I think Mandela is an exemplary model of leadership. He is one of the great social activists of the modern day. What I have learned about him over the past couple days has inspired me to educate myself more on his story.

2. Personal

• A leadership dilemma from my own life was during my freshman year when the Homecoming Pep Rally was cancelled due to rain. Most of the senior class decided to skip class anyway and stormed the hallways. This created uproar from the administration. The Student Council had organized the event, and it was up to us to make it up to the administrators. The dilemma was in deciding if we should simply apologize or if we should lobby for some punishment, such as removing the Rally in the future.
• Another leadership challenge in my school comes up nearly every time I am separated into a group for a project. I have a reputation for having really good grades and being intense in my opinions, so people often just leave me to organize everything, not wanting to fight with me. I always try to include everyone and ask for their opinions in everything, but they often just nod and let me make all the decisions. The ethical questions are “Do I just organize everything myself, since they won’t participate?” and “Should I try to make them participate, even if they don’t want to?”