Excellence is not an act but a habit and so is leadership. It is the reason for the development and underdevelopment of the world................
Leadership is not about speed, ideas, efficiency, or power . . .
It is about knowing your own limitations and celebrating the gifts of others,
It is growing in wisdom, understanding the number of our days, and seeking to understand rather than be understood.
It is caring for people, always hoping for, and expecting the best.
It is being brave enough to be vulnerable in front of others.
It is seeing the big picture of where things are, and building a road to the future with limited casualties.
It is helping each person to sing their song from the heart, and leading the band in praise to their Maker.
- Dan Beerens
To Mandela...........
Courage is not the absence of fear — it's inspiring others to move beyond it
In 1994, during the presidential-election campaign, Mandela got on a tiny propeller plane to fly down to the killing fields of Natal and give a speech to his Zulu supporters. I agreed to meet him at the airport, where we would continue our work after his speech. When the plane was 20 minutes from landing, one of its engines failed. Some on the plane began to panic. The only thing that calmed them was looking at Mandela, who quietly read his newspaper as if he were a commuter on his morning train to the office. The airport prepared for an emergency landing, and the pilot managed to land the plane safely. When Mandela and I got in the backseat of his bulletproof BMW that would take us to the rally, he turned to me and said, "Man, I was terrified up there!"
Mandela was often afraid during his time underground, during the Rivonia trial that led to his imprisonment, during his time on Robben Island. "Of course I was afraid!" he would tell me later. It would have been irrational, he suggested, not to be. "I can't pretend that I'm brave and that I can beat the whole world." But as a leader, you cannot let people know. "You must put up a front."
And that's precisely what he learned to do: pretend and, through the act of appearing fearless, inspire others. It was a pantomime Mandela perfected on Robben Island, where there was much to fear. Prisoners who were with him said watching Mandela walk across the courtyard, upright and proud, was enough to keep them going for days. He knew that he was a model for others, and that gave him the strength to triumph over his own fear.
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