Leadership in Invictus

The story of Invictus is based upon the life of Nelson Mandela during the time he held his Presidency of South Africa. Specifically, the movie focuses on his ideas of managing the Springboks and how the opportunity of using the country’s Rugby team unfolds as a way to bring the country together. Since The World Cup is being held in South Africa during the first year of his term, he sees The World Cup as an attempt to bring the whites and blacks together by finding pride in their home team’s victory. Mandela is successful at transforming the beliefs of South Africa through his styles of democratic leadership, transformational leadership, and interpersonal orientation leadership.
First, Mandela idealized influence by working well with all kinds of people of different race. He displays amazing charisma with others and he possesses an extremely high standard on the Springboks because he knows they can impact the nation. Also, Mandela develops a clear vision of hope for the people of South Africa by challenging the status quo immediately once he becomes president. It is his belief that the country will benefit if whites and blacks weren’t enemies. Mandela is creative by initiating a great plan to use the Springboks as a gateway to accomplish his vision.
In several scenes of Invictus, Mandela’s involvement of followers, open communication, his personal connections with everyone he meets, and his mediation of conflict for group benefit are all evidence that his skills steadily follow those of a Democratic leader. A representation of this can be seen in the iconic scene where Mandela has his initial meeting with Francois Pienaar, the captain of the country’s Rugby team. Mandela’s warmth and respect towards him, and his request of participation attracts Pienaar who comes to the realization that their conversation and meeting was and will become very significant. Responding to Mandela’s question on what his leadership philosophy consisted on of, Piennar responds that