Name: DON MCARTHNEY C.

TUGAOEN
Course Code: HRM 203
Title of Specific requirement/exercise: TERM PAPER
Course Professor: DR. EVELYN ARO-ESQUEJO

Date Submitted: 12/12/2015

MY LEADERSHIP MENTORS
UNDERSTANDING THE LEADERSHIP GREATNESS OF MANDELA AND
MAGSAYSAY
While I was watching the basketball game in NBA last December 6(December 5 in
United States) between the undefeated Golden State Warriors and Toronto Raptors I was
that is just a usual game being held but also a form of commemorating one of the
greatest leaders who live on earth. The Toronto Raptors held a tribute event entitled The
Giant of Africa to celebrate Nelson Mandelas life, legacy and ability to inspire positive
change. This is an event that will feature the impact that Nelson Mandela, late former
South African President and Nobel Peace Prize winner, impact the world and how it
transcends borders, culture and trends.
As I am seeing those honoring act of the organizer and the crowd, I know deep
within me that Nelson Mandela had really created an impact not just a leader but also as
a person. Two years ago on his death there was whole worldwide outpouring of grief
South Africas first black president. Seeing those people telling positive thing about his
leadership and personal two years ago makes me curios.
I came to ask myself why Mandela was honored like this. What did he accomplish?
What makes him build such legacy? Who is he? It came to me that I feel like if Im going
die, I would like be honored also in that way. I want also to become a leader like him.
Nelson Mandela was one of the greatest leaders of all time, a symbol of courage,
strength, compassion, humility and reconciliation, a role model not just for South Africa,
but for the world. What are the leadership lessons we can learn from this great mans
legacy.
Mandela was born into royalty and was groomed from early childhood to follow in
his fathers footsteps as a counsel for the regent. It was from this early age that he
learned a great respect for the culture, traditions and customs of his people. He was one
of 13 children and the youngest of 4 boys. This large extended family also cemented his
traditional upbringing and gave him a strong sense of community.
Mandelas father died when he was 9 and his uncle became his guardian. Mandela
recounts in his autobiography how he first learned about leadership from sitting and
listening to the elders around the fire as they reminisced.
As a leader, I have always followed the principles I first saw demonstrated by the regent
at the Great Palace. I have always endeavored to listen to what each and every person in
a discussion had to say before venturing my own opinion. Oftentimes, my own opinion
will simply represent a consensus of what I heard in the discussion. I always remember
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Name: DON MCARTHNEY C. TUGAOEN

Course Code: HRM 203
Title of Specific requirement/exercise: TERM PAPER
Course Professor: DR. EVELYN ARO-ESQUEJO

Date Submitted: 12/12/2015

the regent's axiom: a leader, he said, is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting
the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along
they are being directed from behind.
As a result of the circumstances of his birth and the role models he grew up with,
Mandela developed many of the personality traits of a natural leader, but over the course
of his lifetime, he also learned and fine-tuned many leadership skills and strategies.
Mandela was sent away to Healdtown boarding school and later, attended Fort
Hare University near Umtata. He discovered the importance of education as a tool for
understanding both his own people's history and culture and those of other groups.
This is one of the reasons why I love Nelson Mandela. He valued education,
learning and personal development which I believe is very important aspect someones
life be an impactful leader. Another thing that amazes me is even while in prison, he
never stops learning and even teaching.
He retained a life-long thirst for education and knowledge, continuing to study
through his years of imprisonment on Robben Island. Mandela was also instrumental in
encouraging fellow political prisoners to continue their education, so much so that
warders there would sometimes refer to his prison block as "Mandela University".
Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the
daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mineworker can become
the head of the mine, that a child of farm workers can become the president of a great
nation. It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates
one person from another.
Many factors contributed to Mandelas personal growth on Robben Island. He was a
large man and he lived in a tiny little cell, this constraining environment taught him a
great level of self-control.
Another thing that I am extremely in awe about Nelson Mandelas is wherever he
was he creates an impact in the lives of people. While being held as a prisoner, he
ensured that on the Island, he developed relationships with the prison guards who had a
direct influence on how the prisoners were treated, demanding basic human respect from
them so as to ensure that the strategy of dehumanization encouraged by the Apartheid
regime was undermined.
The best way to effect change on Robben Island was to attempt to influence the officials
privately rather than publicly I tried to be decent to the wardens in my section: hostility
was self-defeating. There was no point in making a permanent enemy among the
warders. If a man was considerate, we were considerate in return.
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Name: DON MCARTHNEY C. TUGAOEN

Course Code: HRM 203
Title of Specific requirement/exercise: TERM PAPER
Course Professor: DR. EVELYN ARO-ESQUEJO

Date Submitted: 12/12/2015

Even in worst conditions, Mandela can rise as a leader and can create an impact
and transformational change. I believe with all my heart that Nelson Mandela is the kind
of leader that we need today.
First, He is a symbolic leader. He led by example, he used symbols to capture
attention; framed experience, communicated a vision, told stories, studied and used
history. Mandela inspired his fellow inmates in prison by telling them stories. He had a
vision of freedom for the people of South Africa, and inspired others to achieve that
vision. The language, humor and symbols he always used clearly emanated from his
traditional upbringing and his emotive speeches had the power to move people to follow
him in achieving the vision he painted so eloquently.
Secondly, He is a People leader. He believed in people and communicated that
belief. Hi is always visible and accessible and empowered others. Nelson Mandela was
always concerned for people he was concerned about the people he helped in his legal
practice, his first concern when they arrested him for high treason was his children, and
he has always placed others before himself.
He even showed concern for the people who looked after him in prison, and he was
insistent that he wanted to say goodbye and thank you as he left Victor Verster.
I saw that my loyalty was to my people as a whole.
Mandela always lived by his values. He believed deeply in democracy, equality and
human rights. And although his family was extremely important to him, the struggle to
liberate the country was more important. He always repressed his own desires and
sacrificed his own needs for the greater good of the people. This is a responsibility that
comes with leadership and he not only felt it, but lived by it.
He was a man of great integrity who always lived according to his principles, and
even if it meant making a personal sacrifice, he would not compromise on them. He
believed very strongly in the notion of fairness as illustrated by the fact that he was
willing to accede to the wishes of his prison warders if he felt that they were treating him
fairly. Mandela embodied the universal values of honesty, integrity, fair play and truth,
not just in word, but more importantly in deed.
I learned that to humiliate another person is to make him suffer an unnecessary cruel
fate. Even as a boy, I defeated my opponents without dishonouring them.
He believed in preserving human dignity not just his own, but that of the people
around him and he insisted on this even when he was in prison. Family was vitally
important to Mandela, and even though he chose the struggle over his family, later
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Name: DON MCARTHNEY C. TUGAOEN

Course Code: HRM 203
Title of Specific requirement/exercise: TERM PAPER
Course Professor: DR. EVELYN ARO-ESQUEJO

Date Submitted: 12/12/2015

when asked if he had any regrets, they were that he could not be a better son, father and
husband.
Above all Mandela demonstrated an undying loyalty to the struggle for freedom:
I am the first accusedDuring my lifetime I have dedicated my life to this struggle of
the African people. I have fought white domination and I have fought black domination. I
have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live
together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal I hope to live for and to
achieve. But if needs be it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.
Mandela stated that he was fundamentally an optimist. He never once allowed
himself to believe that he wouldnt one day achieve his vision for a fully democratic South
Africa.
Part of being an optimist is keeping ones head pointed to the sun and keeping ones
feet moving forward.
He always inspired a Shared Vision through his speeches, communication with ANC
members and his friends and comrades in the struggle:
No man or women who abandoned apartheid will be excluded from our movement
towards a non-racial, united and Democratic South Africa based on one-man, one-vote on
a common voters role.
Mandela always challenged the process. He challenged the prison authorities
and he challenged the legal system when he believed it was unfair. It is core to who he
was not to accept the status quo but to fight for what he believed in:
why should I obey laws made by a parliament that I was not allowed to vote for.
He was organizer in chief of the defiance campaigns and although it involved
considerable personal risk, he didnt think twice about it.
Mandela always modelled the way, not just in word through his impassioned
speeches and writings, but more importantly through the ultimate sacrifice he made,
spending 27 years of his life in prison.
When he initiated discussions with the government he knew that he had to create
a new model of operation in order to move things forward. He said:
there are times when a leader must move ahead of the flock.
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Name: DON MCARTHNEY C. TUGAOEN

Course Code: HRM 203
Title of Specific requirement/exercise: TERM PAPER
Course Professor: DR. EVELYN ARO-ESQUEJO

Date Submitted: 12/12/2015

In Robben Island too, when issues were taken up with the authorities, he led from
the front, never shying away from his responsibilities as a leader, and certainly not
bothered by the possible consequences.
He encouraged the heart, he was always letting people know when they had
achieved gains, and tried not to focus too much on the negatives.
He enabled others to act in so many ways. He involved other people and
delegated a lot. Whether it was in organizing defiance campaigns, or delegating men to
befriend certain warders on the island. He led the way and showed them how it should be
done. This was also clearly illustrated in his determination to allow others to express their
opinions, even when they differed from his, and even when a more forceful stance by him
would have pushed things his way. He always sought consensus.
On the 2nd May 1994 Mandela proclaimed to the world:
Free at last! Free at last! I stand before you humbled by your courage with a heart full of
love for all of you. I regard it as the highest honour to lead the ANC at this moment in our
history. I am your servant It is not the individuals that matter but the collective This is
a time to heal the old wounds and build a new South Africa.
Nelson Mandela was a visionary and a great leader, but most of all he was a
human being. A man who overcame great personal suffering, and yet emerged with his
vision for the future still intact and his determination to forgive the past and build a future
with all the people in his country so compelling, that he swept the nation along with him
in his quest.
To end, may I quote Nelson Mandelas principle on living a meaningful life to which
I am about to hold and persevere also.
What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what
difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the
significance of the life we lead.

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Name: DON MCARTHNEY C. TUGAOEN

Course Code: HRM 203
Title of Specific requirement/exercise: TERM PAPER
Course Professor: DR. EVELYN ARO-ESQUEJO

Date Submitted: 12/12/2015

RAMON MAGSAYSAY: THE NELSON MANDELA OF THE PHILIPPINES

If ever I can think of Filipino leader to be compared to Nelson Mandela, it is no
other than the man who was distinctively, people in all walks of life regarded as
Champion of the Common Man, Man of the Masses, or The Peoples President.
He is a charismatic leader who became President, in what many political observers
termed a brief shining moment in the Philippine presidency. But it was all-too-brief
because, on December 30, 1953, Ramon Magsaysay became President of the Philippines.
On March 17, 1957, this much-loved leader died in a tragic people did not expected; he
died in a plane crash in Mt. Manunggal, Cebu.
But his conduct and example he raised the ideal and measure of inspired and
dedicated service to all citizens, especially the lowly among them, as the true measure of
presidential leadership and public service. More than any Filipino president, Magsaysay
exemplified the human model of Servant Leadership.

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