What we should have learnt from Mandela

Abstract

Arguments have been made that leadership communication influences contexts in which HIV/AIDS and other programmes play out in ways that determine likely outcomes. Indeed, a recent trend in leadership communication studies has been to realise that leadership communication functions in broader resource systems, structures, and cultures that should be taken into account collectively. Whatever the case, studies and popular discourses on HIV/AIDS leadership continue to be dominated by an interest in the idea that people can be led to good health by leaders who communicate appropriately. Yet we do not have studies that examine the experiences of the leaders who produce the communication that is at stake here. This article does this, focusing on lessons we should have learnt from how Nelson Mandela addressed the wicked problem that is HIV/AIDS.