The masks of Mandela

Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk: Nobel Peace prize winners

Masks can be good AND bad

The masks we wear are so relevant in coaching and leadership. I was talking to a founder of a non-profit and she was saying how hard it was holding the business together under severe funding uncertainty. Essentially wearing the mask of "it's going to be alright". This mask can be dangerous, as it disempowers the people around the leader, and the leader takes all the strain, potentially leading to burn out. But sometimes this is what is required of leadership. I was reminded of this in an excellent podcast by Tyler Cowen, in a wide-ranging interview with Jonny Steinberg.

The mask of the Rainbow Nation

Despite Mandela's anger at his and his people's treatment under apartheid he wore the mask of the Rainbow Nation. This is captured so well in this photograph from my personal collection. The body language between FW de Klerk and Nelson Mandela is crystal clear in the first photograph. And then the mask comes on as they smile for the cameras. Wearing a mask for so long must have come at considerable personal cost. We owe both men our gratitude for a peaceful transition.

Tyler Cowen

"When it comes to Nelson, what do you think were the masks, and how did you get under those masks as you kept on writing the book?"

Jonny Steinberg

"There were just a formidable number of masks. Nelson’s genius was to read the times and to present himself as a character he felt the times needed. The most important and greatest mask he wore was in the 1990s to bring democracy to South Africa. He himself personally at that time, felt that deep, deep raging anger at what had happened to him. He felt that his life had been destroyed and was a tragedy. He was very sad, but he felt that if he brought that into politics as the leader of Black South Africa, he would lead his people to war."

"So, the mask he wore was really the opposite of what he felt, as an avuncular old man. He felt that to bring the country from the brink of civil war to a peaceful coexistence, he would have to present himself in the most unthreatening form that he knew. And he projected joy and cheerfulness when personally he was feeling anything but. The capacity to wear that mask, that professionalism, that vocational certainty and to do it so well with very few hitches was quite remarkable."