Enduring Inspirational Leadership

Some Leaders Demonstrate Enduring Inspirational Leadership

We each inspire other people, often without knowing we are doing so. This humbling fact underscores the sacred responsibility of leaders, in particular, to be mindful of what they write, say, and do.  Enduring inspirational leadership, of course, does not only come from people. Ideas, principles of life, events, situations, places, and things also inspire. This article focuses on inspirational leadership traits and how they are sustained.  These are those life-changing experiences where one or more persons readily, intuitively, and deeply identify with or seek to emulate the leader’s way of life, aspiration, achievement, or guiding principle.

The 20th century produced several leaders: some revered, and others despised. Some leaders attracted huge international followings; others came and went with little or nothing to celebrate their tenures or accomplishments. Like leaders, some inspirations endure; others are transient. Some are territorial; others transcend space and culture and even become institutionalised as global icons, monuments, artefacts, or commemorative documents (biographies, memoirs, maxims, etc.).

This article overviews selected inspirations that have transcended place and culture and seem destined for enduring inspirational leadership. It targets today’s leaders and those who aspire to lead institutions, organisations, communities, and national societies. Drawing upon the lives and works of five 20th-century iconic leaders, we present a repertoire of tools that readers will find essential for successful and enduring inspirational leadership.

Iconic Leaders and Influencers

A cursory review of the lives of five 20th-century leaders highlights vital principles, ideals, values, and personal qualities that distinguish great influencers, attract worldwide followings and make them genuinely iconic, even immortal. Selected leaders include Pope John Paul II, Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Pope John Paul II

Popularly known as “John Paul the Great,” he went beyond the traditions of his pastoral office (the Papacy) to do what he thought was right: ending Communist rule in Poland and Eastern Europe and improving the Catholic Church’s relations with other religious sects. These and numerous other humanitarian efforts made Pope John Paul II virtually a living “saint” in the eyes of the world. Such was his moral rectitude that his canonisation process started immediately after his death. Despite the five-year waiting period, Pope John Paul II was proclaimed Venerable in 2009 by his successor, beatified in 2011, and subsequently canocanonised.

Mother Teresa

Also known as the “Blessed Teresa of Calcutta,” she is widely admired for her charitable works, including personal poverty, wholehearted free service to the poorest of people, homes and hospices for people with HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and leprosy, soup kitchens, dispensaries, mobile clinics, orphanages, schools, and counselling.

Nelson Mandela

He stood for racial equality, led a sustained campaign against the apartheid government of South Africa, and went to jail for his beliefs. On release from prison, Mandela was elected President. In that position, he focused on dismantling the legacy of apartheid and instinstitutionalisedism, ending poverty and inequality, and fostering reconciliation between the races.

Mahatma Gandhi

Known as “high-souled” and “venerable,” led India to Independence and inspired national and international movements for civil rights and freedom worldwide, easing poverty, expanding women’s rights, ending untouchability, and building religious and ethnic amity. Gandhi is best known for practising nonviolence and truth in all situations.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

He was the leader of the Civil Rights Movement, dedicating his life and work to combating racial inequality and advancing civil rights through nonviolent civil disobedience.

Reviewing the lives and works of these global inspirations reveals personal and “ideological” factors that make for enduring inspirational leadership.

Personal Factors

• Selflessness: Willingness to make a personal sacrifice. Renunciation of profit, honour, material gain, or individual benefits.
• Commitment: Total dedication. The goal is the pursuit of which the leader is prepared to live or die.
• Consistency: Every aspect of the leader’s life and work expresses the same ideals and convictions.
• Authenticity: Genuineness. Straightforwardness. Sincerity. Deeply convincing to others.
• Integrity: Actions correspond to words. Behaviour and character exemplify public utterances. Walk the talk.
• Role Model: Exemplifies values with which most people intuitively and deeply resonate or to which they aspire. It exudes humanity’s highest ideals.

Ideological Factors

Truth aligns with our way of viewing the world. We are perceived as the best explanation of the human condition.

• Visionary: Widely regarded as the best way forward for the human condition.
• Moral Compulsion: Publicly and privately affirmed as an urgent and necessary course of action.
• Intuitive Resonance. It aligns with our innermost nature and how we view the world.
• Personal Significance: Brings out the best in people.
• Timelessness: Perceived as an enduring value.
• Transcending: Compatible with and found in most cultures, religions, and belief systems.
• Universal Applicability: Relevant and pertinent across situations and circumstances.
• Engages the Heads and Hearts of People: It is emotionally stirring and resonates with what people deeply know and feel to be true and right.

Lessons for Today’s Bona Fide and Aspiring Leaders

Two facts deserve special notice: Pope John Paul II, Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and Martin Luther King, Jr. The first is their ordinary beginnings. The second is their creativity.

Nothing in their parental background or upbringing indicated that these five leaders would develop uplifting, inspirational qualities and become global icons in their lifetime. But they did. These leaders rose to fame and “stardom” not because of the inherited, elected, or appointed positions they held, nor by force, propaganda, intimidation, or cajolement. They rose to fame and “stardom” by consistently living and exuding values that deeply or compellingly attract other people to them.

Booker T. Washington defined “creativity” as doing ordinary things in extraordinary ways. These inspirational leaders were not “rocket scientists” by any stretch of the imagination. By their total and unalloyed commitment to mundane, everyday human concerns, they awakened in people qualities we all have. However, we often do not realise those abilities. By what they said and did and how they lived, worked, and related with other people, they stirred and brought out the best in people everywhere.

In summary, millions of people around the world followed their enduring inspirational leadership. Not because of who they were but because they presented humanity with everyday economic, social, and political challenges and causes. The pursuit of which gives meaning and significance to people’s lives.