Leadership in Invictus/ My Life

• Within the movie Invictus, Nelson Mandela displays many impressive leadership qualities. Something that struck me as the most interesting was his willingness to forgive. Similar to Matt Damon’s character’s disbelief, I was surprised to discover that Nelson Mandela spent 30 years in prison only to be released and ready to forgive. I believe that this attitude of Mandela’s was extremely important in terms of the way he lead and changed the country. By forgiving the people, he allowed the country to move on from the hard times and to heal. This is something that I will remember as a strategy for leading people because it was so effective. Without his compassion, the problems in South Africa might never have been resolved.
• Matt Damon’s character also showed great leadership. His way of leading was quite different than Mandela’s, but I believe that it was appropriate for the situation that he was in. Instead of being compassionate and generous, he used yelling and instantaneous motivations to get his team excited. This was a good approach for him because the course of a rugby game is much shorter than the changing of an entire country. Therefore, I believe that both Mandela and the rugby team captain both displayed excellent leadership given the situation that they were presented with.
• An example of leadership within my own community is my volleyball coach from last year. He lead our team in a way unlike any other coach I’ve had before. A soft spoken person, he rarely yelled, but when he showed disappointment, I felt dissatisfied with myself. This type of motivation really helped me to improve and has taught me a lot about different ways to motivate people. I have never liked it when coaches yell at me, and my coach showed me that not all leaders were like that. I will take this into consideration if I am ever in a leading position because it is very important to identify the different ways that individuals are motivated.
• In addition, another leader within my life is my rabbi, I am not very religious, but he is a prominent figure in my life. It amazes me every time that I go to services the way that he moves people to such extreme emotions. His wisdom guides many people in my congregation and creates good morals and values that people can apply to everyday life. Something that I really like about his lessons is that he doesn’t scold or scare people into doing things, but just shares with us what he believes to be moral. This is a much more effective leading style for me over being scolded or scared because I feel like I change my behavior on my own choice. Therefore, I feel as though I improve my own values.

Issy Wilson