My parents came from Germany – they were half-Jewish – and their experience there shaped how we were raised. I’m the eldest of three children and we grew up in a highly politicised family; the issues of the day were always discussed and understood. We were taught to stand up for the underdog, and see things from their perspective.

From a very young age I was organising things – sports days, fetes, clubs – and my mother used to give me good guidance as to how to go about things. While I was at school we organised a gala event to raise money for a home for disabled people. There were lots of people there and I remember my mum giving me a whistle and saying that if there was a lot of noise, and I needed to make myself heard, that I should use the whistle – but that I should use it sparingly so that people would know that I was serious.

Leadership

The essence of leadership is to know where you want to go based on where you are.

Then to be able to develop a strategy on how to get there and move towards it in a way that other people will follow you. And you can do it in a big vision, in a big project – like saving SA’s democracy – or you can do it in a range of other ways, including tiny decisions that you have to make quickly, every day, around small outcomes that together comprise government.

The critical thing about leadership is how to be in various situations – not to have just one style, one knee-jerk mode of being a leader.

There are many attributes of leadership, but good judgement is critical. Sometimes you have to lead from the front, sometimes you have to confront and sometimes you have to lead from behind. Steering from behind is a very challenging role of leadership.

Sometimes you have to be consensual in approach, sometimes conciliatory.

The best metaphor I ever heard of leadership was about a group of people who are stuck in a forest and don’t know how to get out. The leader is the person who climbs the tallest tree and points in the direction that they must go. And then also has enough integrity that the people on the ground will believe that person up in the tree and hack their way through the forest in the direction that they all need to go.

So true leadership definitely involves vision. And then integrity – because people soon see through a charlatan. And then definitely courage, because sometimes as a leader you have to have huge courage to do what you know is going to be unpopular. Like Abraham Lincoln saying: “I’d rather be right than be president.”

Then it takes good judgement, which comes with experience. Good judgement is catalytic because circumstances differ so much. Then empathy, and emotional intelligence. Both are very important. And of course, having a passion for the project. It’s a combination of those things. The other indispensable quality of leadership is hard work.

Burden of leadership?

I’ve never felt it as a burden. I really enjoy taking complex problems and finding simple solutions for them.

I’m never happier than when I’m facing major challenges. These years as mayor and leader and premier and leader have been the happiest of my life, simply because of the challenges I have faced. I like that.

Can you leave your work at work?

No. If I’ve got stuff to do, I do it. When I’m facing an issue, I think about it a lot… mulling over it, working it out, speaking to people and taking the advice of people I respect.

I can’t pack up, go home and not think about it. There are people who I go to on many things and for different reasons: some are good for the human complexity of an issue, others for hardcore strategy. And then I pool all those things together.

My husband is also amazing: he’s an academic and he’ll often bring me the best article on the subject I’m grappling with.

Often at night I’ll say to him ‘there’s this issue and this issue and this issue’ and the next day he’ll come back from varsity with piles of books. If I’d had another kind of husband I wouldn’t have been able to do the job that I do.

Serendipity and synchronicity have also played a big part in my life. I’ll find that when I’m grappling with a problem, I’ll chat to someone or do something that brings the answer to me. It’s amazing how things serendipitously fall into place.

What do you do to relax?

I work slowly. And I like having a challenging book to read, something that grabs my attention and imagination. Anything by Malcolm Gladwell.

I don’t like fiction. No escapism. There are very few films I can sit through and enjoy. When I don’t have stress, I look for things to worry about. I’m very bad on holiday.

Leading in SA

Race is a very complex dynamic. Racial identity and racial solidarity still trump other considerations. Less and less so though.

I think history is a very powerful dynamic. (US President Barack) Obama said: “The past isn’t dead and buried; in fact, it isn’t even past.”

Fear is also a very powerful dynamic in politics. Machiavelli said: “Don’t worry about whether or not they love you. Just let them fear you.” I can’t do that, though; it’s completely against everything that I stand for. So I have to hold my principles and know that nice guys sometimes come second.

Woman in a man’s world?

I’ve never felt it or noticed it.

I can understand it intellectually, and particularly for poor women, and for women who have one child after another and the man then leaves them. There I understand it. And feel it. But for women who’ve had education and opportunities and space…

So much of feminism focuses on the wrong issues. It focuses on the top end of women.

The place to focus is on girls who get pregnant as teenagers because men abuse them; girls who drop out of school and never get an education. The place to focus on is girls without any opportunities that then have to depend on abusive men to keep themselves alive.

Leaders you look up to?

(Germany’s Chancellor) Angela Merkel. She’s an amazing woman.

In Africa I’m impressed with people who get out of power when they lose an election (Zambia’s Rupiah Banda).

At home I respect people like Memory Booysen (he’s the mayor of Bitou now). His story is quite inspirational. What he went through during apartheid and how he suffered was quite remarkable.

He’s taken a lot of knocks for what he believes in, and surrendered a lot of advantages he would’ve otherwise enjoyed for just toeing the line.

So people who follow their conscience – often to their own detriment – rather than just doing what is expedient, are people who have my huge admiration.

I often use the example of Martin Luther in Germany. I mean, we can’t think back to that time, but there this oke is … a little Roman Catholic priest. There’s no bill of rights. Just a great, holy Roman Empire with all these heresies that people commit, and the wrath of the church and the fear of being flung out into outer darkness. And he stands up and says: “Here I am. I can do no other. God help me.”

Pinch-yourself moments?

It’s always when I’m flying back to Cape Town and I see the mountain silhouetted against this incredible sunset. And I see this beautiful city.

That’s when I pinch myself. I’ve never planned my life or said: “This is where I want to be.” I’ve always done the best I could in whatever situation I was in, and the next door has then opened for me.

l Justin Nurse is a freelance journalist and founder of Laugh It Off.