Moments of Leadership

by Lauren Fahy

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 Contents
Part One ~ What is Leadership and its Traits?

Part Two ~ Nelson Mandela As A Leader

Part Three ~ John.F Kennedy As A Leader

Part Four ~ Comparison and Conclusion

What is Leadership?
Leadership is the art of leading others to deliberately create a
result
that wouldnt have happened otherwise.

Its not just the creation of results that makes good leadership. Good leaders are able to
deliberately create challenging results by enlisting the help of others. A leader might lead
through official authority and power, yet just as often great leaders lead through inspiration,
persuasion and personal connections.They set direction, build an inspiring vision, and
create something new. Leadership is about mapping out where you need to go to
"win" as a team or an organisation.
 Leadership Traits
Tough-mindedness: Good leaders are practical, logical, and to-the-point. They tend to be
low in sentimental attachments and comfortable with criticism. They are usually insensitive
to hardship and overall, are very poised.

Enthusiasm: Leaders are usually seen as active, expressive, and energetic. They are
often very optimistic and open to change. Overall, they are generally quick and alert and
tend to be uninhibited.

Social boldness: Leaders tend to be spontaneous risk-takers. They are usually socially
aggressive and generally thick-skinned. Overall, they are responsive to others and tend to
be high in emotional stamina.

Emotional stability: Good leaders must be able to tolerate frustration and stress. Overall,
they must be well-adjusted and have the psychological maturity to deal with anything they
are required to face.

Make Risks and Take Risks: This trait links with Challenge and Change, by making
decisions that people would not expect, solutions and ideas will open up which will benefit
others. Making and taking risks will allow leaders to develop but also help their followers
develop. By risk-taking results can be received, opening doors to fixing all problems.

Challenge and Change: As a leader, you must step out of your own comfort zone and
encourage others to step out of theirs. Leaders must challenge rules and ideas to keep
their followers intrigued and supportive. By trying new things and experimenting, leaders
may be able to discover new solutions to problems, but also surprising followers and
competitors.

Nelson Mandela
 NELSON MANDELAS CHILDHOOD AND
EDUCATION
Nelson Mandela was born on July 18, 1918, into a royal family of the Xhosa-speaking
Thembu tribe in the South African village of Mvezo, where his father, Gadla Henry
Mphakanyiswa (c. 1880-1928), served as chief.
The first in his family to receive a formal education, Mandela completed his primary studies
at a local missionary school. There, a teacher dubbed him Nelson as part of a common
practice of giving African students English names. He went on to attend the Clarkebury
Boarding Institute and Healdtown, a Methodist secondary school, where he excelled in
boxing and track as well as academics. In 1939 Mandela entered the elite University of
Fort Hare. The following year, he and several other students, including his friend and
future business partner Oliver Tambo (1917-1993), were sent home for participating in a
boycott against university policies.
He studied law at the University of Witwatersrand, where he became involved in the
movement against racial discrimination and forged key relationships with black and white
activists.

Entering politics
Mandela, while increasingly politically involved from 1942, only joined the African National
Congress in 1944 when he helped to form the ANC Youth League (ANCYL).
In 1952 he was chosen as the National Volunteer-in-Chief of the Defiance Campaign with
Maulvi Cachalia as his deputy. This campaign of civil disobedience against six unjust laws
was a joint programme between the ANC and the South African Indian Congress.
He and 19 others were charged under the Suppression of Communism Act for their part in
the campaign and sentenced to nine months of hard labour, suspended for two years.
A two-year diploma in law on top of his BA allowed Mandela to practise law, and in August
1952 he and Oliver Tambo established South Africas first black law firm, Mandela &
Tambo.
At the end of 1952 he was banned for the first time. As a restricted person he was only
permitted to watch in secret as the Freedom Charter was adopted in Kliptown on 26 June
1955.

The Treason Trial

Mandela was arrested in a countrywide police swoop on 5 December 1955, which led to
the 1956 Treason Trial. Men and women of all races found themselves in the dock in the
marathon trial that only ended when the last 28 accused, including Mandela, were
acquitted on 29 March 1961.
During the trial Mandela married a social worker, Winnie Madikizela, on 14 June
1958.They had two daughters, Zenani and Zindziswa. The couple divorced in 1996.
On 11 January 1962, using the adopted name David Motsamayi, Mandela secretly left
South Africa. He travelled around Africa and visited England to gain support for the armed
 struggle. He received military training in Morocco and Ethiopia and returned to South
Africa in July 1962. He was arrested in a police roadblock outside Howick on 5 August
while returning from KwaZulu-Natal, where he had briefed ANC President Chief Albert
Luthuli about his trip.
He was convicted and sentenced to five years' imprisonment, which he began serving at
the Pretoria Local Prison. On 27 May 1963 he was transferred to Robben Island and
returned to Pretoria on 12 June.
On 11 June 1964 Mandela and seven other accused, Walter Sisulu, Ahmed Kathrada,
Govan Mbeki, Raymond Mhlaba, Denis Goldberg, Elias Motsoaledi and Andrew Mlangeni,
were convicted and the next day were sentenced to life imprisonment.
On 31 March 1982 Mandela was transferred to Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town with
Sisulu, Mhlaba and Mlangeni. Kathrada joined them in October. When he returned to the
prison in November 1985 after prostate surgery, Mandela was held alone.

Release from prison

On 12 August 1988 he was taken to hospital where he was diagnosed with tuberculosis.
After more than three months in two hospitals he was transferred on 7 December 1988 to
a house at Victor Verster Prison near Paarl where he spent his last 14 months of
imprisonment. He was released from its gates on Sunday 11 February 1990, nine days
after the unbanning of the ANC and the PAC and nearly four months after the release of
his remaining Rivonia comrades. Throughout his imprisonment he had rejected at least
three conditional offers of release.
Mandela immersed himself in official talks to end white minority rule and in 1991 was
elected ANC President to replace his ailing friend, Oliver Tambo. In 1993 he and President
FW de Klerk jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize and on 27 April 1994 he voted for the first
time in his life.

President
On 10 May 1994 he was inaugurated as South Africas first democratically elected
President. On his 80th birthday in 1998 he married Graa Machel, his third wife.
True to his promise, Mandela stepped down in 1999 after one term as President. He
continued to work with the Nelson Mandela Childrens Fund he set up in 1995 and
established the Nelson Mandela Foundation and The Mandela Rhodes Foundation.
In April 2007 his grandson, Mandla Mandela, was installed as head of the Mvezo
Traditional Council at a ceremony at the Mvezo Great Place.
Nelson Mandela never wavered in his devotion to democracy, equality and learning.
Despite terrible provocation, he never answered racism with racism. His life is an
inspiration to all who are oppressed and deprived; and to all who are opposed to
oppression and deprivation.
 John F Kennedy
JOHN F. KENNEDYS EARLY LIFE
Born on May 29, 1917, in Brookline, Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy (known as Jack)
was the second of nine children. His parents, Joseph and Rose Kennedy, were members
of two of Bostons most prominent Irish Catholic political families. As a student at Harvard
University, Jack traveled in Europe as his fathers secretary. His senior thesis about
Britishs unpreparedness for war was later published as an acclaimed book, Why England
Slept (1940). Jack joined the U.S. Navy in 1941 and two years later was sent to the South
Pacific, where he was given command of a Patrol-Torpedo (PT) boat. In August 1943, a
Japanese destroyer struck the craft, PT-109, in the Solomon Islands. Kennedy helped
some of his marooned crew back to safety, and was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps
Medal for heroism. His older brother, Joe Jr., was not so fortunate: He was killed in August
1944 when his Navy airplane exploded on a secret mission against a German rocket-
launching site. A grieving Joe Sr. told Jack it was his duty to fulfill the destiny once
intended for Joe Jr.: to become the first Catholic president of the United States.

JFKS BEGINNINGS IN POLITICS

Abandoning plans to be a journalist, Jack left the Navy by the end of 1944. Less than a
year later, he was back in Boston preparing for a run for Congress in 1946. Jack won his
partys nomination handily and carried the mostly working-class Eleventh District by nearly
three to one over his Republican opponent in the general election. He entered the 80th
Congress in January 1947, at the age of 29, and immediately attracted attention (as well
as some criticism from older members of the Washington establishment) for his youthful
appearance and relaxed, informal style. Kennedy won reelection to the House of
Representatives in 1948 and 1950, and in 1952 ran successfully for the Senate, defeating
the popular Republican incumbent Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. On September 12, 1953,
Kennedy married the beautiful socialite and journalist Jacqueline (Jackie) Lee Bouvier.
Two years later, he was forced to undergo a painful operation on his back. While
recovering from the surgery, Jack wrote another best-selling book, Profiles in Courage,
which won the Pulitzer Prize for biography in 1957.

KENNEDYS ROAD TO PRESIDENCY

 After nearly earning his partys nomination for vice president (under Adlai Stevenson) in
1956, Kennedy announced his candidacy for president on January 2, 1960. He defeated a
primary challenge from the more liberal Hubert Humphrey and chose the Senate majority
leader, Lyndon Johnson of Texas, as his running mate. In the general election, Kennedy
faced a difficult battle against his Republican opponent, Richard Nixon, a two-term vice
president under the popular Dwight D. Eisenhower. Offering a young, energetic alternative
to Nixon and the status quo, Kennedy benefited from his performance (and telegenic
appearance) in the first-ever televised debates, watched by millions of viewers. In
Novembers election, Kennedy won by a narrow marginless than 120,000 out of some 70
million votes castbecoming the youngest man and the first Roman Catholic to be elected
president of the United States.
With his beautiful young wife and their two small children (Caroline, born in 1957, and
John Jr., born just weeks after the election), Kennedy lent an unmistakable aura of youth
and glamour to the White House. In his inaugural address, given on January 20, 1961, the
new president called on his fellow Americans to work together in the pursuit of progress
and the elimination of poverty, but also in the battle to win the ongoing Cold War against
communism around the world. Kennedys famous closing words expressed the need for
cooperation and sacrifice on the part of the American people: Ask not what your country
can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.

KENNEDYS LEADERSHIP AT HOME

During his first year in office, Kennedy oversaw the launch of the Peace Corps, which
would send young volunteers to underdeveloped countries all over the world. Otherwise,
he was unable to achieve much of his proposed legislation during his lifetime, including
two of his biggest priorities: income tax cuts and a civil rights bill. Kennedy was slow to
commit himself to the civil rights cause, but was eventually forced into action, sending
federal troops to support the desegregation of the University of Mississippi after riots there
left two dead and many others injured. The following summer, Kennedy announced his
intention to propose a comprehensive civil rights bill and endorsed the massive March on
Washington that took place that August.
Kennedy was an enormously popular president, both at home and abroad, and his family
drew famous comparisons to King Arthurs court at Camelot. His brother Bobby served as
his attorney general, while the youngest Kennedy son, Edward, was elected to Jacks
former Senate seat in 1962. Jackie Kennedy became an international icon of style, beauty
and sophistication, though stories of her husbands numerous marital infidelities (and his
personal association with members of organised crime) would later emerge to complicate
the Kennedys idyllic image.

JFKS ASSASSINATION
On November 22, 1963, the president and his wife landed in Dallas; he had spoken in San
Antonio, Austin and Fort Worth the day before. From the airfield, the party then traveled in
a motorcade to the Dallas Trade Mart, the site of Jacks next speaking engagement.
Shortly after 12:30 p.m., as the motorcade was passing through downtown Dallas, shots
 rang out; Kennedy was struck twice, in the neck and head, and was pronounced dead
shortly after arriving at a nearby hospital.
Twenty-four-year-old Lee Harvey Oswald, known to have Communist sympathies, was
arrested for the killing but was shot and fatally wounded two days later by local nightclub
owner Jack Ruby while being led to jail.

Comparison Between JFK and Nelson

Mandela

Similarities

Both Nelson and Jack was inclusive politicians, who wanted equality for
everyone. They were both great speakers and very charismatic. They were
both natural born leaders and both of them were disloyal to their wives. Both
leaders were confident in what they were politics, which allowed their
followers to see their true goals.

Differences

As well as similarities, there were also differences between the two leaders.
JFK was the youngest man to ever be elected as president in America and
Mandela was in his 70s when he went into presidency, he was quite old. JFK
was born into a very wealthy family where as, Nelson was born into a poor
family. John was uncharge of a world power country, where as, South Africa
is not. This meant that Mandela didn't have as many resources as Jack did.
They were presidents in different times. Mandela took power in the 90s and
JFK took power in the 60s. Sadly, JFK was assassinated before he was 50.
This meant he was only president for about 3 years. Mandela was president
for 10 years.
 Conclusion
I learnt from completing this project that, even though these two leaders have many
similarities they also have differences which makes them stand out in society. I now know
what true leaders these two men were. They definitely portrayed many of the leadership
traits I mentioned above, which are crucial to being a powerful and great leader!