Reflection on Invictus

1)

Leadership Examples

• ·      Even after spending 26 years in prison and being badly treated by whites all his life, Mandela still swears to unite the people of South Africa. He persevered through the hatred most of the country had for him and stayed true to his oath

o   Mandela wants the rugby team to win the World Cup in order to unite the whites and blacks of South Africa together to aim for a common goal

o   Finds new white bodyguards and wants them to collaborate with the African bodyguards

·      Francois Pienaar realizes Mandela’s motives and pushes his teammates to aim towards the same goal, winning the World Cup.

o   Pienaar encourages his team to practice extra hard

o   He pushes his team to teach younger black children how to play rugby

Lessons

• ·      Forgive and Forget- Mandela moves on from his past bad experiences with whites and learns to see them as friends not enemies
• ·      Treat others the way you want to be treated- Mandela treats his bodyguards and aids with respect to demonstrate that he honors their opinion

2)

• ·      During tennis tryouts in my sophomore year, many of my friends who had not made the team freshman year were trying out again. However, my coaches had already taken 10 people from my grade onto the tennis team in tryouts the year before. My coach had to decide between taking more sophomores on the tennis team or taking some freshmen in order to balance out the team. Even though the sophomores were the better players my coach chose to take 2 of the freshmen instead so that there wouldn’t be too many girls from my grade on the team.
• During midterms last year, many students were telling other kids what the essay prompt was. One of my friends chose to tell the teacher that this was happening because she didn’t feel that it was fair that she already knew the prompt. After my friend made that difficult ethical decision, my teacher also had to make the decision of whether or not to change the prompt. She could either have the same prompt and have kids already know what they would be asked or take the time to make up a new prompt that was somewhat similar in level of difficulty. In the end, she chose to create a new prompt in order to give all her students equal opportunity for a good grade.