Nelson Mandela (EIE): Personality Type Analysis

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was a South African lawyer, political activist and Thembu hereditary nobleman who was the most prominent leader of the movement against that country's system of institutionalised racial segregation known as apartheid. He served as South Africa's first president of the post-apartheid period from 1994 to 1999 after having been a political prisoner in 1964-1990.

Backround: 
Mandela was born in 1918 in what is today the Eastern Cape province, in the core territory of the Xhosa ethnic group; more precisely he belonged to the royal family of the Thembu, a smaller group within the Xhosa. He studied law at Fort Hare, not far from his home town of Qunu, and in 1943 he continued his studies at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.

Up to this time, as per his own account, Mandela's life experiences had been mostly limited to rural areas where his daily exposure to the social realities of being a black South African were minimal, and his personal ambition was essentially to become a court interpreter in his home region. However, in Johannesburg he became more personally exposed to racial segregation and got acquainted with politically active students. Mandela got increasingly involved in political activism himself, joining the African National Congress (ANC) organisation and at 25 years old, co-founding the ANC's Youth League, as he believed in more risky action than the ANC's leader at the time was taking. Nevertheless he also continued to rise within the ANC's main structure. During this period, Mandela led a "triple life" as aspiring working attorney, family man (after getting married in 1946), and ANC political activist. The National Party's victory in the 1948 elections dashed the ANC's, and Mandela's, hopes for a gradual improvement of black political rights: the NP's program was one of rigidly enforcing and expanding racial segregation, under the ideology of apartheid  ("separateness" in Afrikaans). This development led Mandela and his fellow ANC members to act in more aggressive political activism. Mandela kept gaining political visibility, which led to his first arrest in 1952 but no prison sentence at the time.

Qualifying as an attorney, in 1953 Mandela opened a law office in Johannesburg with Oliver Tambo as partner - the only African-run law firm in the country, "Mandela and Tambo". That further raised Mandela's profile and popularity; also, by now, his standing as an attorney, his aristocratic origins, and his natural personal dignity combined to make him, increasingly, a natural leader among the black population. It is interesting to note that, in their law firm, Tambo was the one focused on paperwork and legal assessments, while Mandela was the one arguing cases before the court. Throughout the 1950s, Mandela's visibility as a political activist kept increasing; he was often temporarily banned by the government from making public appearances during this period, and eventually, in 1956, he and other ANC leaders were charged with high treason. The process went ahead slowly at first, but the particularly hard-line government of Hendrik Verwoerd (LSI), prime minister since 1958, used martial law to ban the ANC and other organisations and to arrest Mandela and others. The judiciary was still fairly independent from the government, however, and in 1961 the court declared that there was not enough evidence of treason and so the defendants were released.

That same year, Mandela co-founded the armed wing of the ANC, known as MK, which in his conception would conduct acts of sabotage on the country's infrastructure but avoiding civilian deaths. Mandela himself never participated personally in operations of this sort. After a clandestine tour of several countries, though, Mandela was arrested upon returning to South Africa, and condemned to five years in jail for, among other things, having left the country illegally. In 1963, other ANC activists were arrested while in hiding in a farm cottage in Rivonia, outside Johannesburg, where documentation of their, and Mandela's, activities as MK members was also discovered. In 1964, Mandela and 7 others were sentenced to life imprisonment and sent to the maximum security prison on Robben Island, a small arid island just off the coast of Cape Town. Conditions were initially very harsh but they improved a bit after Verwoerd's assassination by a deranged messenger in 1966. Mandela was able to continue to study law from prison and eventually to receive visitors and letters more regularly. No photos of Mandela were allowed, which contributed to his quasi-legendary status until he was finally released in 1990 (by then, the general public could only guess what he looked like after decades in prison). By the mid-seventies Mandela had become a focus point and symbol of global anti-apartheid activism. "Free Mandela" became a common slogan internationally. In 1982, he and others were transferred to a prison in Cape Town itself, where conditions were better than on Robben Island. By this time, developments in South Africa were manifold: political violence had escalated, with the government of prime minister (later president) P W Botha (probably LSI) on the one hand brutally repressing protests with military force, and on the other hand reaching the conclusion that  - very limited -  constitutional reform was needed, as well as the quiet dismantling (or non-enforcement) of some of apartheid's restrictions. The Botha government also started to consider Mandela as an opposition leader with whom it was at least possible to negotiate, unlike some of the more radical groups. However, Mandela repeatedly rejected offers of exchanging his personal freedom for a promise to denounce political violence generally. These general trends continued: in 1988 Botha transferred Mandela to the low-security Victor Verster prison near Paarl, where he was kept in a comfortable warder's house instead of a cell, and was occasionally driven around the neighbouring towns, in secret, to start to get used to the world outside prison. But even though he had Mandela secretly brought to his office in 1989 for an informal conversation, Botha had already gone as far as he would in terms of political reform. His successor, F W de Klerk (probably SEE), was more attuned to the changes in political realities globally and in South Africa, and so he had more substantial discussions with Mandela regarding a future political transition. In February 1990, at a stroke, de Klerk legalised the ANC and other organisations and released all political prisoners, including Nelson Mandela. Accompanied by his wife Winnie, he simply walked out of the prison camp to face the crowds (and to show his face to the world for the first time since 1964). 

The next four years were of renewed turmoil, with the country preparing for the first universally free elections in its history in 1994, and with different political factions turning to violence, including the Zulu Inkatha movement, Afrikaner paramilitary groups, and the armed forces of the "homelands".  Mandela consolidated his position as the leader of the ANC and its presidential candidate, without having had to fight for it: in effect, there was no realistic alternative to him in the ANC. He spent those years negotiating the political transition with the still-in-power de Klerk government and the other political factions in the country. In April 1994, as per the interim constitution negotiated between the main political factions, free elections took place, with the ANC gaining 62% of the seats in parliament and de Klerk's NP, 20%. Mandela became President of South Africa, at first with a government coalition that included FW de Klerk himself and a small number of NP ministers.

Nelson Mandela's term as president ran for five years until June 1999; he declined to run for re-election. Although the South African constitution grants vast executive powers to the president, by personal inclination and due to the "collegiate" nature of the ANC (in which its executive council carries more authority than any individual), Mandela did not really govern as a hands-on chief executive. He even stated openly that many members of the cabinet knew more about running a country than he did. Rather, Mandela more or less loosely presided over a cabinet of ministers which had, or acquired, specific skills in their different fields while he devoted himself to high-profile, public gestures of political reconciliation, aimed in particular at the Afrikaner population, and to diplomatic trips. He retained formal power and personal authority, in particular on government appointments, but especially in his last two years as president he increasingly left the actual executive control of the government to his deputy (and successor as president), Thabo Mbeki. That was emphasised when Mbeki succeeded Mandela as ANC president already in 1997. By the time Mandela left the presidency of South Africa in 1999, his personal control of the machinery of government, and of the party, had clearly all but disappeared. Yet he retained immense moral authority nationally and globally.

Mandela lived for fourteen years after leaving the presidency, dying in 2013. He remained a revered "father of the nation" in South Africa and a figure of global influence, with easy access to world leaders. In South Africa, he actively promoted HIV/Aids awareness - which he had not really done as president, something he openly regretted. He also founded the international organisation "The Elders", which was essentially his brainchild: a league of senior global ex-politicians and celebrities aiming at using their personal prestige for humanitarian causes. He died of natural causes at 95 in 2013.

Socionics analysis: Nelson Mandela's character and personality showed the following traits, throughout his life and career: a focus on his social environment, with feelings of inadequacy that stung him as a young man, and a gift for feeling at ease in any society as he got older; ease with emotional expression, whether when enraged or when being disarmingly charming. As a young professional, much concerned with status symbols such as smart suits, fast cars and owning a house - "the marks of a man", as he put it. As an attorney, feeling much more at ease arguing cases in court than with legal paperwork. As a prisoner, comfortable in establishing at least civil, sometimes cordial, relationships with his guards, even as he, as an attorney, wrote many letters challenging the prison's conditions. As a politician, able, and willing, to reconcile publicly with former enemies, including the prosecutor who had asked for his death penalty in 1964 - and looking perfectly charming and sincere as he did so; and by all accounts, willing and able to reach out in private to opposition politicians in a way that seemed beyond most of his fellow ANC leaders.

Throughout his pre-presidential career Mandela's political aims consisted of one objective only, as he himself put it: a "one man, one vote" system ("man" including women, as it used to be commonly expressed). Everything else - precise political structure, how the economy would operate, etc, was obviously secondary to him and his stated views on those varied greatly over the years. As he acknowledged, he found it difficult to elaborate on principles of political philosophy or economic policies, preferring to "borrow" concepts from others when he had to write or make speeches on those. 

Going into more detail:

E: Mandela's focus on E is already clear from his own memoirs: he chose to describe in detail how he felt ill at ease, as a very young man, when for the first time he had lunch at a wealthier household where he felt insecure about his manners. Such an episode is in itself trivial; what is revealing is that Mandela was still musing about it as an old man. He is also candid about how, as a young attorney in Johannesburg, he was obsessed about possessing and showing off status symbols, like his suits and car, that would project the image of a respectable and successful man. According to what he himself chose to focus on in his memoirs, the experiences that seemed to carry the most meaning to him were E-based, positive or negative.

The fashionable young Mandela

When he partnered with Oliver Tambo in an law office, it was clear to both of them that Tambo needed to be the one doing the legal paperwork, with Mandela arguing cases before the court, with both men aware of their respective strengths. As a partner in the only black-run law office in the country at the time, and with his aristocratic background as a member of the Thembu royal family, added by his natural dignity and even his height, Mandela was ideally placed to become a political leader; but he also had the added advantages of a charismatic personality and public speaking skills. As for his personal motivations in doing so, Mandela himself admitted that before moving to Johannesburg he was not interested in politics and was only concerned with his career. What got him going into the anti-apartheid movement was a succession of personal indignities, especially in the first law office where he worked - not in the sense of him being targeted personally, but in ways that made clear his lower social status, which he noticed indirectly even when not explicit, again in a sensitivity to E.

As a leader in an underground political movement, Mandela could appear bitterly determined and resentful in filmed interviews, in a way that may surprise those only familiar with the kindly demeanour of his later years, showing a wide range of E communications and appearing natural in them. He showed the same focus in his passionate speech at his 1964 trial, just before hearing the sentence (which could have been the death penalty). Once in prison, even during the harshest, early years on Robben Island, Mandela was skilful in maintaining courteous, if not friendly, relationships with the guards with whom he came in direct contact if they were at least a bit humane, while remaining the informal leader of the prisoners. This all confirms his natural E skills as a politician even in the most difficult circumstances, always projecting an image of aristocratic dignity, even as a prisoner condemned to hard labour. As the circumstances of this imprisonment became increasingly relaxed over the years, he easily adapted to the circumstances, until, even as a prisoner still, he behaved more as the inevitable next leader of South Africa, even during his secret meeting with President Botha in 1989. Of this meeting, Mandela commented later that what had impressed him the most was that Botha himself served the tea - yet again showing his sensitivity, and focus, on E social manners and the impact they had on him, positive or negative (by contrast, a more P focused person would be more likely to have been disappointed at the lack of substance in the conversation with Botha). 

During the period between his release in 1990 and his election as president in 1994, a transition period often fraught with political violence and even threats of civil war, Mandela easily played varying roles according to circumstances: a congenial, good-humoured, apparently kindly and gentle old man while abroad, especially in the US; while often a tough negotiator with the outgoing government of President FW de Klerk as well as with other factions in South Africa. When dealing with de Klerk, Mandela could wrongfoot him by adopting a stance of outraged indignation whenever he accused the government of breaking agreements, which weakened de Klerk's already-waning political position. All of this demonstrates his easy use and focus on E.

Once in office as president, at first Mandela devoted much of his public time to high-profile PR gestures aiming at reassuring the white, especially Afrikaner, South African population, which had been terrified for decades of the possibility of the ANC taking over the government. Such gestures included visits to figures related to his past as a political prisoner, such as the prosecutor who had asked for the death penalty for him in 1964, and the elderly widow of Hendrik Verwoerd, the "architect of apartheid",

Giving the trophy at the Rugby World Cup of 1995

 the prime minister of the time. Perhaps the peak of such gestures - as well as of the "feel-good" phase of Mandela's presidency - was when Mandela personally delivered the trophy to the national rugby team, the Springboks, when they won the world cup in 1995, while donning the Springbok shirt. That had strong symbolic impact as rugby and the Springboks were much more identified with the Afrikaner population than with the South African population as a whole, and Mandela's gesture made a point of trying to erase that distinction.

Also, interestingly, although as a young attorney and as a politician running for office, Mandela made a point of only being seen in public wearing smart business suits, once he became the president, he shifted to only wearing colourful Bika shirts, emphasizing the point that he was now a new kind of African leader. Mandela remained focused on managing his public image throughout his life, which he seemed to do easily and naturally.

Later in his presidency, Mandela gradually stopped with such overt reconciliation gestures - partly because he felt that they had run their course, partly because he felt that they had not had the effect that he expected, also because he was withdrawing from being an active president more generally. In his last couple of years in office, as he let his deputy Thabo Mbeki (probably IEI) increasingly assume control of the government, Mandela started to spend more time receiving celebrities such as Bono, David Beckham and the Spice Girls, and seemingly having fun, suggesting that he may have been enjoying positive E input.

E is clearly the most visible element in Mandela's character and personality, and it must be at an Ego function, E1 or E2.

T: Unfortunately, unlike Barack Obama (IEI), Mandela apparently didn't leave many writings that reveal the natural flow of his thoughts. His bestselling memoir of 1994, Long Walk to Freedom, was a carefully-managed work with a political purpose and written by a ghost writer with the input of several people, rather than a spontaneous memoir written by an individual. Mandela actually resisted the notion of a personal memoir at the time, he would have much preferred to write a history of the ANC instead. That means that that book is of limited value in trying to identify Mandela's socionics values and preferred elements, even if the episodes related did come from him and he had final approval of the text. The memoir does provide some examples of Mandela's focus on E; but a focus on T is more elusive. Mandela's letters from prison have been published, but they mostly concern themselves with his legal complaints, or letters giving advice or reprimands to his children, or letters giving thanks to friends and supporters for favours or the like. One exception is one long letter to his then wife Winnie, where Mandela describes in detail dreams that he was having and the images he was seeing. Such a letter, in those circumstances, does point to a considerable T focus.

Interestingly, as president, many years after being released from prison confinement, Mandela reflected that although it had been a tragedy to spend so many years in prison, he actually missed the fact that there, he could spend hours just sitting down and thinking, as he put it; and that he actually missed that. I suggest that for a man to say that he missed prison to the extent that there he could just think, that points to a man with a great focus on his inner thoughts as opposed to his immediate environment, so a considerable focus on T. 

Mandela's use of T, though, remains most obvious in his skilful management of this public image and his awareness and use of the power of symbols to cause a political impact, which is a combined use of E and T. Although not as a leading function, T seems to be a valued element.

P: In many aspects of his personal and political life, Mandela was a pragmatist. When he started studying law, his ambition was to become a translator/interpreter and legal clerk, a modest and realistic goal. When getting involved in politics and the liberation movement, he always took a cautious, practical line, at first waiting to see if conditions would gradually improve, before the NP came to power in 1948, and then only gradually moving to clandestine political activism and eventually (moderate) violence. The point is that Mandela was never a dreamer in the sense of expecting that guerrilla warfare or violent revolution would ever militarily defeat the South African government of the time. 

During the turbulent transition years between 1990 and 1994, Mandela was again pragmatic in terms of political compromise: although his vision and even ideology had been of an unified South Africa with a "one man, one vote" democratic system, in order to bring on board the Zulu Inkatha movement as well as the Zulu king, Zwelithini, Mandela actually at one point put on the table an offer for a quasi-autonomous status for the Kwazulu-Natal province, with the king as its nominal head, which is revealing even if that particular idea came to nothing.

Throughout his early years of political involvement, Mandela explored several ideologies, including communism (several of his early companions were self-declared communists, like Joe Slovo and Ruth First) and for a very long time Mandela and the ANC adopted the notion that the end of apartheid would need to be followed by the mass nationalisation of South Africa's mines, banks etc. Mandela reaffirmed that goal even during his first speech immediately after being released from prison in 1990. However, with the collapse of the USSR and of communist regimes more generally in 1989, even in the ANC such ideas started to lose support, and when this was pointed out to Mandela, he quickly changed his stance on that as well, and that remained his position from then on: he did not really have a strong ideological commitment to mass nationalisation, even though he defended that position during decades.

Although Mandela's E was the most visible aspect of his public life, it was always "constrained" by pragmatic P considerations, whereby his E was something that originated within himself, while his P was more like a compromise, reacting to others and to circumstances, suggesting P role to a leading E.

S: As mentioned in the T section above, Mandela actually stated that in a way he missed prison to the extent that he had plenty of time and quiet to think. During a visit to Robben Island, when entering his old cell - from the time of the harshest conditions of his imprisonment - Mandela surprised those around him by cheerfully demonstrating what kind of exercises he'd do in the cell to keep in shape. He also pointed out how great the view of Cape Town from Robben Island was. Although, at the time, he would write letters to the prison authorities complaining of conditions increasing their discomfort, the impression is that, overall, the sensory deprivations did not leave that much a mark on him. As a young man in Johannesburg, Mandela's favourite sport was boxing - a sport that demands F focus and in terms of S is more like a punishment. Overall it seems clear that S was not one of his valued functions.

Interestingly, for his retirement, Mandela built a house in his home village, Qunu, that was an exact replica of the warder's house in the Victor Verster Prison where he had spent his last two years before being released in 1990. It is possible that that reflects an extreme conservatism in Mandela's S focus: that even several years later living in larger houses, he still associated the most positive sensorial feelings to the first house that was comfortable after over two decades in prison cells. It is also possible that it reflected a T association of that warder's house with a period of peace and hope, as by then he knew that he would be released soon. Perhaps it was due to a combination of both T and S needs.

L: I believe that the most illuminating evidence on Nelson Mandela's use of L is in this 1998 documentary by the Australian journalist John Pilger (probably LSI) which includes his interview with Mandela as president. Pilger pointed out to Mandela several L inconsistencies between his policies and his stated principles: Mandela confirmed Pilger's interpretation of his foreign policy as, he would indeed have diplomatic and commercial relations with any country in the world, regardless of their domestic policies, which were not his concern. Pilger asked, is that not inconsistent with your and the ANC's previous demand over decades that the international community impose sanctions on the previous regime in South Africa in order to force political change? Mandela ended up arguing that South Africa's previous apartheid regime was a special case; when Pilger raised the example of Saudi Arabia's "appalling human rights record" - another country that Mandela had praised for its previous support of the ANC - Mandela feebly pointed out Saudi Arabia's program for supporting students. What is revealing about this exchange is that it seemed that Mandela had not even realised such ideological contradictions or their implications, let alone prepared himself for explaining them. 

Mandela himself freely admitted that he found it much easier to borrow discourses on political ideologies from others - such as Nehru or Gandhi - when writing his speeches or letters, than to develop consistent political thoughts himself. His one consistent ideology, which he defended relentlessly despite huge personal cost to himself and his family, was that South Africa needed to have a government elected on an "one man, one vote" (a phrasing that did mean that women would also vote) basis rather than the racially delimited system under apartheid. He was little, if at all, invested in the precise political system that would follow - whether federalist or unitary, or presidential or parliamentary, or unicameral or bicameral, or a proportional or constituency-based voting system, etc - and despite paying lip service to the ANC policy of mass nationalisation for many years, he was not really focused on a preferred economic system and followed the thinking of his closest ANC aides as far as that was concerned.

L was apparently an element that Mandela valued, but also one that did not come easily to him and that with which he preferred to have help from others - and with which he was particularly helpless if others criticised him with it instead. L5 fits best.

Former president Botha and Mandela, 1995 - LSI-EIE duals

F: Nelson Mandela understood the dynamics of social and political power, both at a personal and at a higher, nationwide level. As a  young man - as per his own memoir - he gave much importance to personal symbols of status and power, such as expensive suits, smart cars, and to being seen as an important and successful man, which he achieved as an attorney in Johannesburg in the 1950s. In terms of interpersonal interactions, he could be forceful but there is no record of him being inclined to impulsive aggressiveness, physical or otherwise. Although he was the founder in 1961 of uMkhonto we Sizwe, the ANC's paramilitary wing, Mandela never became a man of action, always remaining a politician. On the other hand, it's significant that his chosen sport as a young man was boxing, one of the most F-intense sports. Interestingly, of Thabo Mbeki (probably IEI), his deputy president, Mandela once observed, "he is diplomatic to the point where he is seen as weak" - Mandela valued F in others as well as in himself: not only in his second wife Winnie (probably SLE) but even in opposition leader Tony Leon (probably ESI).

As a political prisoner on Robben Island, while at a personal level in a position of powerlessness, he understood the symbolic, political power of his position (an understanding of F via E+T), therefore refusing to make any political concessions in exchange for personal freedom (which would have led his political power to disappear). That understanding - that time was ultimately on his side - also allowed Mandela to negotiate from a position of strength with the outgoing de Klerk government, even though the latter still controlled the state apparatus, including the police and the army. F was for Mandela a valued function but one that needed help from stronger Ego functions, so fitting F6.

Mandela's relationship with former president Botha is revealing for his F and L functional ordering. He clearly had more respect, even affection, for Botha than for his successor de Klerk - even as de Klerk was the one who released Mandela and all other political prisoners, as well as in effect abolishing apartheid, in 1990. This 2006 article by the veteran journalist John Carlin in The Independent is insightful:

"By a strange irony, often remarked upon in South Africa, Mandela always seemed to hold Botha in higher esteem than FW de Klerk, the president who handed over power to the black majority and with whom Mandela shared the Nobel Peace Prize. Partly it was a question of personal chemistry. Mandela saw in Botha a reflection of qualities he wished to see in himself. Botha was a tough leader, a man clear in his principles, honest in his own way. Partly it was also that Mandela perceived in Botha a degree of political courage that he chose, perhaps unfairly, not to see in de Klerk."

That is, a description of Mandela as having F and L as elements he admired and even envied in others, and so in his SuperId, and perfectly matching L5 as well as F6 for Mandela with the LSI PW Botha as his Dual.  

Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki

R: Nelson Mandela's attitudes to, and relationships with individuals was complex. Most visibly, Mandela gave enormous value to a person's (or even entity's) previous loyalty or support to the ANC during its years of struggle: in the case of his comrades in the ANC, that was manifested in an almost complete unwillingness, as president, to punish or even censor those who, having become members of the government, were revealed to have been involved in corruption or other abuses of power. Likewise, while being a consistent supporter of democracy, individual liberty, and freedom of expression within South Africa (and internally in the ANC), Mandela gave the highest praise and honours to foreign dictators (Gaddafi, Castro, Suharto, and others) who had supported the ANC during its clandestine years, and would not countenance criticism of them (as in the interview with John Pilger mentioned above). That suggests that L impersonal considerations, based on perceived ideological synchronicity, often overruled those of more personal R judgements of individual character.

On the other hand, Mandela's attitude to his political and ideological adversaries could be very situational. During the period of political turmoil of 1990-94 - between his release and his election to the presidency - Mandela's personal relationship with FW de Klerk could be bitter, with Mandela even accusing de Klerk of being indifferent to the killings by the security forces and of being deliberately uncooperative during the brief coalition government of 1994-96. Nevertheless, once both men had retired from politics, Mandela's attitude to de Klerk clearly mellowed, with Mandela happily giving a speech in Afrikaans on the occasion of de Klerk's 70th birthday in 2006, when Mandela himself was 87. Likewise, as president, Mandela was often impatient and resentful of the opposition in parliament, especially from the (then) tiny but relentless Democratic Party; nevertheless as reported by its then leader, Tony Leon, in private Mandela was invariably kind and courteous to him, as well as willing to understand his point of view (as opposed to Mandela's successor Thabo Mbeki).

By all accounts, it was very difficult to become a close, intimate friend of Nelson Mandela: apart from family members, his close relationships tended to be with his political comrades, especially those who shared his Robben Island years, and it is hard to discern how many of those could be called intimate friends. He could keep people at arm's length as far as a close friendship was concerned, while remaining thoroughly warm and welcoming. On the other hand, Mandela would often remain grateful for decades to individuals who had helped him in times of need, such as Lazar Sidelsky, an attorney who gave Mandela his first legal job, as a law clerk, when he was 24: Mandela would say of Sidelsky, “You see this man — this is the only man I'm prepared to call my boss”, decades later.

The complex and nuanced approach of Mandela to R, which seemed to come easily to him, points to it as a strong function; on the other hand, the fact that it seemed often to be situational and sometimes overruled by ideological affinity, is consistent with its being less valued than E or L. R7 is a good fit.

I: The trait that most obviously differentiated Nelson Mandela from most of his leading associates in the ANC was his spontaneous willingness to consider and understand the perspectives of the different factions fighting for political power in South Africa, including the ruling party during apartheid, the NP. As already mentioned, he would not compromise on his ultimate goal of nationwide universal suffrage; but he was sincerely interested in understanding the reasons and perspectives of those who fought against that goal. While in prison, he devoted many hours to learning Afrikaans and studying Afrikaner history, and he said that he came to understand their point of view and liked to draw parallels between the Afrikaners' own historical struggles in South Africa and those of the ANC and black South Africans generally. Accordingly, as president, he found it natural to consider the views and perspectives of the political opposition and reach out to their leaders, even though, with a 62% majority and immense personal authority, he could have ignored them with no consequence. That trait came naturally to him, and it was somewhat of an irritation to some of his colleagues, who tended to see the NP leadership rather as enemies to be defeated or at best to be co-opted in a subservient position, but whose perspectives could be ignored. Mandela's natural inclinations in this area point to I as a strong function but one that he possibly wasn't even aware of as a skill, so pointing more specifically to I8.

On the other hand, Mandela himself felt that this trait sometimes led to political paralysis on his part: as president, he hesitated, and in the end failed, to use his personal leadership to communicate to the general population the extent and seriousness of the HIV/Aids epidemic in southern Africa, and therefore also failed to promote behavioural changes that would mitigate it. Mandela later explained that he understood that even mentioning the subject would cause uneasiness in the more traditional African population. Once he left office - and once he realised that his successor Mbeki was likewise failing to address the issue - Mandela, as former president, become more active and outspoken on the subject, openly lamenting his former paralysis. This can be interpreted as an I8 leading to inaction due to the excessive consideration of others' perspectives, even while knowing that more decisiveness was required; once he reached that decisiveness, he could feel more at ease with himself, as he was focusing on a valued yet sensitive element, F6.

Conclusion: a broad-brush look at Nelson Mandela would already suggest a Beta and EIE in particular: a charismatic revolutionary leader devoting his life to a struggle for achieving his vision of societal change, regardless of personal sacrifices. Looking at his functional ordering in more detail substantiates that impression.

Sources: Nelson Mandela's classic 1994 autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, is useful for the basic facts of his life, but its value as a look into his psyche is limited as it was largely ghost-written. The Prison Letters of Nelson Mandela gives a bit more insight into his thinking. Anthony Sampson's Mandela: the Authorised Biography goes into the details of his life including the presidency. David James Smith's 2010 Young Mandela focuses on his early years up to the Rivonia trial. Tony Leon's Opposite Mandela, written in 2014, is a personal memoir of his interactions with Mandela as one of the leaders of the opposition to the ANC. There are many more books written about Nelson Mandela, also by members of his family and even by one of his jailers on Robben Island, Christo Brand. The veteran South African journalist Allister Sparks interviewed most of the leading political figures of the time, from Verwoerd to Mandela, and his 2016 memoir The Sword and the Pen contains portraits of them, especially Mandela.

To learn more about EIE, click here.

If you are confused about our use of Socionics shorthand, click here.