Mandela's Leadership Legacy with Dr. Steven Segal

Dr. Steven Segal is a psychologist, philosophical counsellor, and leadership coach. He is a former Associate Professor at the Macquarie Graduate School of Management and has spent more than two decades working at the intersection of psychology, philosophy, leadership, and organisational life. His work explores how individuals and communities respond to uncertainty, disruption, and existential threats—those moments when people experience a loss of meaning, belonging, identity, or a sense of being at home in the world. Through his therapy, counselling, coaching, teaching, and writing, he helps individuals and organisations navigate complexity, anxiety, and change while remaining connected to what matters most.

His most recent book is Mandela's Leadership Legacy: Emotional and Existential Wisdom. The book was written as a kind of conversation between Martin Heidegger’s existential philosophy and Mandela’s way of being a leader. It used Heidegger to shed light on Mandela’s existential journey and used Mandela to provide an accessible introduction to the philosophy of Heidegger.

A Couple Quotes From This Episode

• "Mandela wasn't the kind of motivational speaker who gets people hyped up. His style was much more thoughtful in the sense of working through emotion."
• "Dialogue across difference, it gets to your identity. And when our identity feels a bit threatened, we tend to become reactive rather than listening. Mandela was able to listen when there were threats to his identity."

Resources

• Book: Business Feel: From the Science of Management to the Philosophy of Leadership
• Philosophical Reflections and Insights for Psychologists and Psychotherapists (forthcoming)
• Website - Dr. Steven Segal

About The International Leadership Association (ILA)

• The ILA was created in 1999 to bring together professionals interested in studying, practicing, and teaching leadership. Attend The Global Conference in Toronto, October 28-31.

About  Scott J. Allen

• Website
• Weekly Newsletter: Practical Wisdom for Leaders

My Approach to Hosting

• The views of my guests do not constitute "truth." Nor do they reflect my personal views in some instances. However, they are views to consider, and I hope they help you clarify your perspective. Nothing can replace your reflection, research, and exploration of the topic.

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Transcript

Scott Allen: [00:00:00] Okay, everybody. Welcome to the podcast. Thanks so much for checking in wherever you are in the world. Today, fun conversation. A conversation that I have not had on this podcast, and this is an incredible leader that, uh, we are gonna discuss today, Steven Segal, and he is here to talk about Mandela.

He has a book that's coming out in June 2026. This is being released in July 2026, so it's timely. And Steven, why don't you tell listeners a little bit about you, and then we'll jump into the book. Thanks for being here, sir. 

Dr. Steven Segal: Thank you very much for inviting me. I appreciate it very much. Mm-hmm. Um, so at the moment I'm a s- a psychologist and a leadership coach.

Uh, my, my background, uh, I s- I spent about 25 years in a management school teaching leadership amongst other things, including philosophy, uh, of, of [00:01:00] management and psychology of management and executive coaching actually as well. My, my PhD's in philosophy. And, uh, uh, yeah, my, my background is, uh, from South Africa living through the days of kind of, uh, radical change in South Africa, uh, the excitement of it and the scariness of it, uh, at the same time.

And I think you know, that's kind of enriched the way I think and the way that I do what I do. 

Scott Allen: Oh, that's wonderful. Well, we're, we're talking about today your book on Mandela, and obviously an individual who just had a incredible impact, not only in world history, but in, of course, South Africa.

And- ... so maybe bring us into a little bit of a story about kind of the roots of this book, and then we'll talk a little bit about what you want people to know about Mandela. And of course, [00:02:00] for listeners, we'll have links in the show notes for you to purchase the book and learn more. 

Dr. Steven Segal: Thanks, Scott. So I guess the roots of the book having, having taught leadership for over 20 years and, uh, focusing amongst others on Mandela's, uh, way of being a leader, um, always resonated well with the classes.

Excuse me. With the classes that I, I teach. Um, uh, there, there were quite a few things. The, the thing that I've focused on most in Mandela is the role of emotions and moods, uh, in his leadership practice. Uh, and I used to bring this, uh, into my classrooms as well as kind of Mandela's process of reflection in the context of action.

Not outside of action, but in action. W- has always been this kind of central theme of, of my work. And there are [00:03:00] just some lovely little vignettes, uh, that Mandela talks about in his autobiography, uh, about his kind of style of reflection. And I think I'll just mention one now. Yeah, please.

Uh, so towards the beginning of his, uh, journey he was, uh, he was the leader at this stage of, uh, the military wing, uh, of, uh, the ANC. This was 1951. And as the leader of the military wing of the ANC, uh, he, he was, uh, he, um, uh, he kind of had to sneak out of South Africa. And, uh, uh, he, he went to different places in Africa.

And, uh, on one of the journeys, he was on a flight. And because he was Mandela, he was given VIP treatment. And in that VIP treatment, uh, he sat in the front row of the, of the plane. And in those days, they didn't close the [00:04:00] pilot's doors. So you could, uh, actually see the pilots. And so he looked at the pilots and he s- he said, "Those are Black men, and Black men can't fly airplanes."

And he went into a, a slight little panic. But then he says he had a strange sensation in his stomach. And this strange sensation in his stomach alerted him to the fact that he, this kind of black liberation, uh, icon, he too was colonized, if you like, by an apartheid mindset. Yeah. Uh, and so it became a moment in which he realized how much apartheid was still in him.

But the kind of, uh, effect of that on him was that he was able to kind of sit back, relax and enjoy the ride. And so here we have his, like, reflection in the context of [00:05:00] practice, in the mood, I like to call it, in the mood, uh, of, of practice. And I think that, uh, there's so much that Mandela did that was really grounded in the same practice of reflection.

I, I think that his whole leadership style, maybe not his whole, but so much of his leadership style, uh, was grounded in his ability to reflect in the immediacy of the situation. Not like a scientist standing at an objective distance, but as a leader in the context of action doing this.

Yeah. Um, and that's kind of always resonated for me about him and about, uh, leadership, uh, in the context of practice. And I guess in my classes what I used to do was unpack what this means. Leaders- uh, reflection in the context. What does it mean for, [00:06:00] participants in the class? What, what, what does it take for them to kind of tune into their own emotions like Mandela did?

You know, tuning into the strange sensation. Just tuning into little moments of disruption in himself and in leaders, because leaders will always be experiencing moments of disruptions. 

Scott Allen: Oh, yeah. 

Dr. Steven Segal: Um, that that's what distinguishes leadership from, say, scientific methodology, where everything is secure and worked out in advance.

Uh, leadership, uh, so much of the time you're taking risks. Uh, you don't know where you're going in advance of going there. Uh, it's committing oneself in the face of uncertainty, uh, and the unknown. Um, and this is the world in which Mandela lived and developed himself, uh, as a leader.

Scott Allen: It, it's it's so interesting that ability... I mean, some call it, what, [00:07:00] metacognition, being able to think about our own thinking, observe our own thinking, observe our emotions in real time. And of course, there's times where I- I'm better at that, and there's times where I'm failing at that miserably as a parent of three and a partner and a leader.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But I, you know, I... T- talk a little bit more about kind of emotions and moods. I'm interested in this because here is an individual who is experiencing virtually every end of the spectrum of emotions and moods, his experiences, what he's going through. Yeah. What have you learned about, uh, emotions and moods as it relates to Mandela?

Dr. Steven Segal: So, um, so I, I, I like to call part of Mandela's style a therapeutic style of leadership. 

I- in Mandela, [00:08:00] part of the argument of my book is the strategic and the therapeutic go hand in glove, uh, with each other. 

So on, on the therapeutic side Mandela was able to not only deal with the rational dimensions of leadership, but he was able to deal with the emotional dimensions of leadership like a therapist.

So he w- he wasn't the kind of motivational speaker who kind of gets people hyped up and he, his style was much more thoughtful in the sense of working through emotion. So I'll, I'll give you I'll give you two examples. 

Scott Allen: Yeah. 

Dr. Steven Segal: The, the first one was in 1985, uh, when, uh, uh, Mandela, uh, was a A prisoner uh, on Robben Island.

And he took it on [00:09:00] his own kind of initiative to speak to the government of South Africa about dialogue towards transformation, uh, in South Africa. And he said, And he's a prisoner, so he's got no authority, but he's, uh, writing to the government. Uh, he said, "I want to put two items on the agenda, uh, for transformation.

The one is white fear of Black majority rule, and the other is the dignity of Black people which needs to be realized politically, uh, in Black majority rule." So what we see here is Mandela working both on a rational level and an emotional level. He's working very much with fear, and he's working very much with kind of humiliation, loss of dignity, uh, restoring dignity.

Um, and it's part of his style, [00:10:00] um, of- It's part of his therapeutic style is to kind of, uh, acknowledge the emotional uh, dimensions, uh, of a, of a conflict. And, and I and, um, he, he... Yeah, he works with acknowledging the uh, emotional dimension. His second move is to create a different kind of relationship to the emotion.

And his third move is to open a new possibility for doing things. So let, let me give an example of Mandela doing this. And the example that I'm gonna give is it's South Africa in 1993. Uh, Mandela was released from jail, uh, in 1990. South Africa is in transition. It's a negotiation period between Mandela's ANC, uh, and the South [00:11:00] African government of the day.

Uh, the ne- the negotiations are not going very well. And so there's a lot of tension in the air. And the second in command, uh, to Mandela, and some say more popular than Mandela, uh, Chris Hani who was, uh, the leader of the military wing of the ANC at that stage, was assassinated by two white, uh, right-wing men.

And this was a Saturday morning. And, uh, I remember the total freak-out, uh, we were all experiencing. Uh, we all expected civil war because this was one of the most popular leaders. And the people were angry as it is, uh, as it was, sorry. The humiliation was deep. The anger was strong. Uh, and so who could contain this [00:12:00] moment?

It couldn't be the South African government- Hmm ... um, because they were the proponents of apartheid. And there was, uh, Mandela himself was, uh, skeptical as well as the African people believed, and I think rightly so in many ways, that even though the government was talking to Mandela and having negotiations, uh, he nevertheless, uh, the South African government was still part of the atrocities uh, in South Africa at that time.

So the only person that could really speak to the people was Mandela. Um, he, he had no formal authority, so he had no governmental position, no formal authority. He had moral authority. Hmm. Uh, but even then, uh, his moral authority was really being questioned by the African youth. They were very kind of, uh, [00:13:00] skeptical of Mandela.

They, you know, he used to go to rallies, and they booed him at the rallies. Really? Uh, that, yeah, that this peace drive, uh, was, you know, not, not bringing Black liberation. Uh, it was just serving, uh, white, uh, interests. And so Mandela, Mandela, So this the assassination was the, um- Saturday morning.

Mandela made a speech the Saturday evening. It wasn't a great speech and commentators say that Mandela wasn't emotionally present in the speech that he was giving. He was a bit emotionally distant. Um, uh, it, it wasn't his real authentic self we can say speaking there. Uh, and, uh, the climate continued to increase towards civil war public anger [00:14:00] killings.

And on the Wednesday morning after that, so three days later, three or four days later, uh, Mandela of his own initiative now decided to make a, a new speech. Um, and he told the government, uh, that he was making the speech, and they had no, I mean, they were scared. Everybody was scared. You know, Mandela was granted the platform and he made this most amazing speech and, and a lot of my book centers around the speech uh, that he made.

And the first thing he did when he made the speech, uh, he said "I'm reaching out to you from the very basis of my being." 

You know, this is not the kind of speech that, uh, kind of formal political leaders make. Firstly, the phrase reaching out uh, carries a lot of [00:15:00] emotion. And he's reaching out for connection to the people.

And he's reaching out because he also knows that he can't mandate or order or command, uh, peace and holding the line, so to speak. He knows the people are really shaken up, and so he's reaching out. And he's reaching out from his being. So not from his kind of political savvy.

Not from his techniques, uh, not from his rhetorical skills. He's reaching out in a raw and vulnerable state. 

Speaker 3: Yes. 

Dr. Steven Segal: And so I think that's also just amazing of a leader to be able to be raw and vulnerable, uh, in front of the nation, like that. And then he, he starts his speech And he says "A white man [00:16:00] full of hatred and, uh, vile..."

I can't remember the exact words, but they were very emotionful words. They weren't, uh, neutral words. That Mandela was hurting himself at this time. Uh, so he wasn't, again, an objective scientist. He was hurting. He was in the thick of the emotion of it all. "A white man has come and killed one of our great leaders.

Uh, and this has sh- thrown us into grief and anger. And we are hurting. We are hurting very deeply." He said, but then he went on, said "I want you also to know that it was a white woman who identified the white man who ex- who assassinated Hani." Um, so immediately he's putting these opposites into an effective relationship with each [00:17:00] other, he's not polarizing. Uh, we, we can think of many leaders on the world stage at the moment, uh, who take these opportunities as opportunities to polarize even more. Mandela is bringing these angry and these anxious whites, the angry Black and the anxious whites, he's bringing them together in a bigger whole.

And then he continues speaking to the, uh, the, the Black people, uh, of South Africa and he says he says, "I want to again acknowledge our grief and our anger." And so he's kind of legitimating the anger. He's bringing it up, uh, for thought. Um, and he's, h- he's inviting the people not to go into a reactive relation to, uh, [00:18:00] anger and and and hurts.

Uh, not to be reactive. So he's making this public speech, raising the consciousness of the people to become aware of the emotions that they're going through. And in making them aware of the emotions they're going through, he's asking them not to give into The emotions. Mm-hmm. And of course it's very easy to give into these emotions at this time for Mandela himself, uh, and for the people of, uh, of South Africa.

So he's, he's calling for a kind of thoughtful, meditative relation to this hurt and uh, and, uh, grief. And he's saying, "We have every right to grieve now. We have every right to be angry. We have every right, uh, to be hurt because of what's been done by this white man." He says, "But [00:19:00] if we give into this, uh, we are going to destroy, uh, the very thing that we are working for and that is a kind of free and democratic South Africa."

Um, and he says there's a bigger danger behind all of this than our grief and our anger. And the bigger danger is, again, this disillusion, the civil war, uh, that's gonna threaten everything, uh, we fighting for. So he starts now putting this into a bigger emotional context. There's the threat, and I wanna say, I wanna call this kind of threat an existential threat.

It's a it's a threat to the very vision, uh, of a democratic South Africa, so to the very fundamentals of what people are fighting for. And so he, he raises this level of existential threat. And he then goes on to say I'm putting it in my words now, not in his [00:20:00] words. Just he said, "Uh, I can't command you to go for peace now and for, uh, um, you know, uh, the..."

He said, "But what, whatever decision you make tonight is gonna affect the future of how we live together." 

And so that's some of the detail of the speech. You know, that's some of the emotion, emotional tone uh, of, of that speech. And again, it's not a traditional leadership speech that- Yeah

which, yeah. 

Scott Allen: Yeah. I mean, it, it, I, I guess I think of, uh, Winnicott the holding environment, the concept of a holding environment in psychology where you, uh, he, he's- He's just holding the space and, and to your point, doesn't have formal authority. Only is working from a place of influence. And it, I- he has moral authority, right, as you mentioned.

But it's just fascinating the ability to... [00:21:00] I think Abraham Lincoln had this ability. I've had- Mm-hmm ... a number of episodes on Lincoln where he would... Or John Hume in Ireland, I think had this ability- Mm-hmm ... to hold that space. 

And it's just, Hard. Yeah. Yeah. It's almost like- Yeah

you're holding these two tensions in this beautiful way, acknowledging the tensions and- Yes ... um, holding that space, right? 

Dr. Steven Segal: Y- yeah, absolutely. It's, it's really holding the space, and it's holding the space while he's also- 

Scott Allen: Yes ... 

Dr. Steven Segal: in the space himself because Mandela is very hurt. He's very angry. 

Scott Allen: Oh. 

Dr. Steven Segal: Uh, and he's grieving.

Scott Allen: And it's years. Um, 

Dr. Steven Segal: and so- 

Scott Allen: Years of this, right? Whether it's Biko or- Yeah ... we just go down the list of, of, of individuals who you know, years and years of abuse and [00:22:00] frustration. Absolutely. Right? 

Dr. Steven Segal: Absolutely. Absolutely. Years and years of abuse, frustration uh, uh, threats to his dignity, humiliation, um, and yet being able to work through it and even in prison befriend his guards and his enemy, reaching out to the government, you know, reaching out to his jail wardens no matter what they did to him.

And he purposefully did it, but he could do it. He purposefully reached out to them and enabling many of them to transform in jail. People would come to him and say how embarrassed they were at having had this apartheid mindset. And you know, uh, Mandela, like a therapist, uh, worked with, uh, his prison wardens to enable them to see and be differently.

And so again, th- i- in terms of power, he had [00:23:00] no kind of tools of power. Uh, when we think of what tools of power are, he was a prisoner but he had, he had the dialogue. He had, he knew how to hold dialogue with, with people. Yeah. 

Scott Allen: Well, and that, uh, I, I think that's probably really an underrated leadership concept, leadership skill con- it

just, the ability to engage in dialogue and create that space- ... where transformation can occur, where understanding can occur, where empathy can occur I, oof. 

Dr. Steven Segal: Yeah. 

Scott Allen: Right? 

Dr. Steven Segal: Yeah. A- absolutely. And it's kind of, you know, the, at this level, the dialogue is not just a technique- 

Scott Allen: Yeah ...

Dr. Steven Segal: uh, of dialogue. You know, it's you, it's your heart and your mind and every part of you is involved in this kind of dialogue, this dialogue for [00:24:00] overcoming this dial- I, I ca- I call it dialogue across difference. 

Scott Allen: Yeah. 

Dr. Steven Segal: You know, to hold these kind of dialogues across difference, 'cause they do get to your identity. Uh, and when our identity feels, uh, a bit threatened, w- we tend to become reactive, uh, rather than listening. And Mandela was able to listen when there were threats to his identity.

Um, there, there's a lovely little story, if I can go on with this for a moment. Please. 

Scott Allen: Please, yeah. 

Dr. Steven Segal: There, there's a lovely little story of, uh, in prison Mandela tells a story of, You know, uh, at, at this stage he'd, I think he'd been in prison for about 18 to 20 years. Um, and so he, he was part of the elder group.

Um, and a younger group, uh, cla- came into, uh, prison,

uh, um, political prisoners. And they had no respect [00:25:00] for the old guard, you know? And so the old guard tended to get reactive and defensive and feel they were being marginalized. But to use a word of yours, uh, Mandela had nothing but curiosity- 

Speaker 3: Yeah ... 

Dr. Steven Segal: for this young guard, and he wanted to know more about them.

He wanted, you know, because they'd been out of jail, they'd been in South Africa, so Mande- Mandela wanted to know what was going on. And, uh, so, uh, he, he, he went out and spoke to them and, uh, tried to understand their position and, uh, understood their position. And slowly slowly you know, he, he, he warned them that defiance in prison wasn't going to work as a tactic.

And they kind of, mocked him and thought he's an old man. And so he [00:26:00] waited, he waited. And he often says patience was one of his greatest, hardest lessons to learn. But he waited and he waited until such time as the youngsters began to see that defiance wasn't working, and it was causing a disruption.

They didn't know how to go on in being in jail. And at that moment of disruption, Mandela stepped in not to preach to them, not to say anything, but to lead them, almost like a kind of a therapeutic leader or even a platonic educator, lead them out of their cave of defiance into new ways of relating uh, in prison.

And so that's just another kind of story of Mandela, you know, his dialogue, uh, waiting for the right time to have the dialogue, listening, a very well-developed and honed capacity for listening, [00:27:00]and then speaking to the way in which the youngsters listen. So speaking their language. 

Scott Allen: Yes. 

Dr. Steven Segal: Which he would always did, 

Scott Allen: well, in that, in that phrase, "I'm reaching out to you from the basis of my being." Yeah. And if there's an authenticity there, and a vulnerability there, and a curiosity there, and a and a genuine effort to understand and to engage- 

Dr. Steven Segal: Yeah ... 

Scott Allen: I mean- 

Dr. Steven Segal: Absolutely ... oof. 

Scott Allen: What else should listeners need to know as we begin to wind our time down, sir?

What else do you want them to know about the book? 

Dr. Steven Segal: One, one of the main themes of the book are existential threats. And I, I kind of wrote the book because I think we're living in a era of existential threats. And there're at least two dimensions of existential threats, uh, that are central to the book and [00:28:00] central to Mandela.

The first cen- the first dimension of an existential threat is- Where the conventional rules for doing things are no longer working. We cannot rely on habituated conventions, uh, for doing things. And I think we see that in, in so many parts of the world at the moment where traditional conventions for doing things are being, uh, disrupted.

And, uh, um, we don't know how to go on. And so we get caught in reactive kind of spirals of blaming the other. It's always the fault of the other. It's uh, um It's kind of, well, it's the Democrat, it's the Republican, it's the Jew, it's the Palestinian, it's the you know, [00:29:00] it's, uh, everyone's otherizing but it's very difficult to stay in the space of the existential threat.

And Mandela lived in the space of the existential threat. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. 

Dr. Steven Segal: Um, the second dimension of the existential threat is a s- is a sense of losing a sense of home in the world. And you know, uh, the book explores Mandela's homelessness in the world, and how he worked with the sense, uh, of being homeless.

Mm. And how his kind of whole process of overcoming himself was working through several dimensions of homelessness, uh, in the world. Um, and I think that those are very topical. Well, this whole notion of an existential threat is very key to where we are at the moment. Uh, and so I think Mandela has got a lot to kind of, uh, offer us and challenge us to work [00:30:00] existentially with threats not only kind of methodologically and technically.

Yeah. So th- that's the theme of the book. Yeah. 

Scott Allen: Well, in this, uh, you know, we could call them adaptive challenges. Uh, you know, sometimes it's, uh, sometimes they're called messes, you know, in history. It's, uh, the, the complexity of what we're navigating is fascinating. Mm-hmm. And I did a post on LinkedIn the other day where, I think it was John Kotter who had his eight-step process of, of change.

And, it's, today it feels like, how do you just lead in permanent white water? How do you lead in that space- Mm. -where, and- Yeah ... and create that holding environment where people- Mm ... feel centered, grounded. And you need an individual who is centered, grounded, present, and to, to your point, skilled at managing their own emotions and [00:31:00] moods and managing the emotions- Mm

and moods of others. And an individual who can, uh, reflect in action in real time on their own processing and the impact that's having. Mm. You know, as we wind down the conversation I always end with the following question. What's the practical wisdom in this dialogue we've just had? How do you think about that?

Dr. Steven Segal: I, I guess the, the practical wisdom of the book is being a- it being able to engage in Mandela-style dialogues. You know, some of that involves being able to listen when you feel threatened the most. 

Can, can you learn to listen to your own sense of being threatened, and can you move beyond that, yeah. Uh, tuning in to one's own anxiety, tuning into one's own uncertainty, um, not only kind of [00:32:00]being objective about it, but as the example I used at the beginning with the airplane, Mandela tuned into strange sensations in his body. 

Scott Allen: Wow. 

Dr. Steven Segal: So it's kind of learning to listen to yourself and allowing that to emerge.

That's all he did there. He sat there, he allowed it to emerge, and then it was over for him, so I guess it's bringing this emotional dimension to reflective practice. 

Scott Allen: Steven, thank you so much. I appreciate the conversation. Thanks for your good work. For listeners, there are links in the show notes, so please check those out.

Check out this book. Sounds like a wonderful, wonderful resource for anyone who, A, wants to explore the topics we've discussed, but, B, if you're teaching leadership, if you're teaching complexity, if you're teaching VUCA, if you're teaching wicked problems, if you're teaching just, history, Here's a shining example of what we could look to with an individual who had some, uh, beautiful [00:33:00] skills and, uh, a wonderful way of being and navigating some very, very challenging situations.

Steven, thank you so much. I appreciate you, sir. 

Speaker 3: Thank you very much, Scott. I enjoyed it very much. 

Scott Allen: Be well.

Speaker 3: Thank you.