Abstract
Nelson Mandela is highly regarded as an example par excellence of African leadership. In this
regard he is praised for the ways in which he united South Africans, ushering in a new national
order. Yet little has been done in Communication Study, in South Africa, to describe the key
leadership communication traits that make up his leadership. What is more, notwithstanding
some claims regarding how Mandela embodied ubuntu in practice, little has been done to locate
and theorise his leadership style in relation to African traditions of communication. This paper
presents an appreciative thematic analysis of how Mandela’s leadership communication
practices were eulogised and remembered in selected South African newspapers in the ten day
period between his death and burial. This entails putting into play a methodological innovation
that brings insights from appreciative enquiry to bear on established practices of thematic
analysis. The aim is to arrive at key lessons for contemporary and future leadership that can be
drawn from the praise of Mandela that is found in the extraordinary newspaper coverage of
him that one finds in this time of mourning.