This week's edition of TIME magazine has a great cover article about Nelson Mandella. It lists His 8 Lessons of Leadership.
They are all good... but I really liked #7 - "nothing is black or white."
"...he would then give me a curious glance and say, "why not both?" .... the message was clear: Life is never either/or. Decisions are complex, and there are always competing factors. To look for simple explanations is the bias of the human brain, but it doesn't correspond to reality. Nothing is ever as straightforward as it appears.... Mandella is comfortable with contradiction...he was a pragmatist who saw the world as infinitely nuanced....Mandella's calculus was always, What is the end that I seek, and what is the most practical way to get there?"
"Life is never either/or"... what do you think?
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1 comment:
I especially like this blog part 'Mandella is comfortable with contradiction'. It reminds me some studies I did in the early 90's into great American literary giants from the 1800s (Emerson etc). I've had this Walt Whitman quote in my address book since about 1991 and I still love it:
'Do I contradict myself? Very well then...I contradict myself; I am large...I contain multitudes'.
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