Leadership lessons from Mandela

I read an interesting article today about Nelson Mandela on his 90th birthday on time.com. It was about what Mandela considered the most important points of leadership. It painted Mandela as a pragmatic, humane leader who was more of a politician than a saint. He was ready to compromise to reach his final goal - end of the apartheid regime in South Africa. He accepted failure as readily as he accepted success. He believed in the importance of keeping appearances as people constantly looked upto him for inspiration. He learnt Afrikaans to understand the "white" South Africans. He always spoke at the end in a meeting - letting everyone talk, the summarizing everyone and finally, steering the opinion to what he believed was the right thing to do. This served the purpose of ensuring that he did not appear overbearing. The article went on about his leadership qualities. That made me think -

What would I consider the most important quality of a great leader in a more "normal" setting, say at the workplace? It is a mixture of :
1. Her ability to lead from the front
2. Her willingness to take risks with her followers
3. Her readiness to give her followers full credit on success and to shield them when they fail

Who is my favourite leader? My boss - yes, sounds corny but it is true!

Whom would I want to lead like? Imran Khan - the charismatic Pakistani cricket captain

Interesting thoughts. But now, it is time to fall into the bed and sleep. C ya!!