Abstract
When legendary South African president Nelson Mandela passed away on December 5, 2013, the world responded with an outpouring of heartache for the loss mixed with reverence for his heroic leadership. Foremost among the tributes to Mandela was a statement made by US president Barack Obama, who observed that Mandela “no longer belongs to us. He belongs to the ages” (Parnes, 2013). Obama surely was aware that his words mirrored those made a century and a half earlier by Secretary of War Edwin Stanton upon the death of President Abraham Lincoln. Of Lincoln, Stanton is said to have uttered, “Now he belongs to the ages,” although some claim that Stanton actually said, “Now he belongs to the angels” (Gopnik, 2007). Whether ages or angels, Stanton’s meaning was as clear as that of Obama. When extraordinary, transformative leaders perish, we construct rhetoric to ensure that their life legacies transcend the small time period in which they lived. Our language forges great leadership in eternity.
We have only to follow the thread of the hero-path. And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence; and where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world.
—Joseph Campbell (1949), The Hero with a Thousand Faces
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Allison, S.T., Goethals, G.R. (2014). “Now He Belongs to the Ages”: The Heroic Leadership Dynamic and Deep Narratives of Greatness. In: Goethals, G.R., Allison, S.T., Kramer, R.M., Messick, D.M. (eds) Conceptions of Leadership. Jepson Studies in Leadership. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137472038_10
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