#207: Leadership Lessons from Caster Semenya
Dear friends
Today’s letter meditates on leadership lessons from Caster Semenya’s The Race to Be Myself. It breaks format and is longer than usual. I think it’s worth it.
In ordinary circumstances, Mokgadi Caster Semenya would be a name known only to South Africans and athletics fans.
A medal-winning Olympian, who was her country’s flagbearer at the 2012 Games, she has set the fourth-fastest time on record for the women’s 800 metre race, and holding various South African records, she is an athlete of note. And, true, without the campaign against her, she may well have broken more records. Still, I know the name of only one other contemporary athlete, Kenyan marathoner, Eliud Kipchoge. It is her fight for human rights, for the space to be herself, that catapulted her to global status
It was hard to write this without recounting the outrages and humiliations endured by her and her family. The unexplained medical invasions of an 18-year-old’s body, the journalists who descended on her family’s rural village not celebrating but seeking scandal, the ‘leaks’ of private medical information, and several other violations. However, at the heart of Semenya’s book is a determination to inspire us to be better humans, that is the spirit I honour in today’s letter.
Released in late 2023, The Race to Be Myself starts, “For those who are born different and feel they don’t belong in this world, it is because you were brought here to help create a new one”.
It is the story of a gifted young girl who is loved by her family and community, a love that strengthens her for fights they didn’t know were coming. She reflects, “I kept going back to that feeling of being adored by the two most important people in my life when later it seemed that the rest of the world thought I was some kind of monster”.
It is the age-old story of medicine and science being crudely used to label and oppress. It’s a story of courage and cruelty. She asks, “How do you explain what it feels like to have been recategorized as a human being? That one day you were a normal person living your life, and the next day you were seen as abnormal?”
It is the story of a newly born democracy that rallies, unevenly so, in her defence. It’s a story of resilience, of love, of belief and of overcoming. Above all, it’s about being human, and I am a better one for having read it. You will be too.
Semenya locates her story within the wider arc of the South African story, “I am a proud South African woman born in a tiny village to people who loved me. They have survived more humiliations than I could possibly know. It is from them that I know about maintaining dignity in the face of oppression. It is my hope that by telling my truth, I inspire others to be unafraid, to love and accept themselves. May this story contribute to a more tolerant world for all of us”.
She meets Nelson Mandela, “In the moments of darkness that were to come, I remembered his words. If someone like him could survive and overcome twenty-seven years in prison and become a symbol of love and freedom to our people – why couldn’t I endure this? What I was going through seemed like a small thing compared to what he had survived. Compared to all those who had died during South Africa’s struggle for independence and democracy”.
At seven years old, whilst playing with her sister, she feels a click in her right knee, she’d dislocated the patella bone and needed surgery. Public hospital waiting lists meant she spent seven months in hospital before the surgery was done and, to this day, she walks with a slight hitch. The injury troubled her throughout her career.
It reminds us that not even grievous setbacks need mean the end of dreams.
Semenya recounts her experience of the 2012 London Olympics finals. By this stage, she was taking IAAF mandated medication to suppress her natural testosterone levels, medication that had triggered weight gain, night sweats, panic attacks, insomnia, and brain fog.
Waiting trackside, she fell asleep and was shaken awake by Kenyan Janeth Jepkosgei.
Bewildered, with jumbled thoughts, she took her place in the starting line up and the gun went, “I was at the back of the pack. Fighting for my life. You could see the strain and disbelief on my face. I remember thinking ‘What am I doing here?’”.
By the time the final lap started, she was thinking “Jump out. Get out. You’re going to be last. End it now. Now… get out, girl. Jump out…”.
And then, “I thought about my mother and father in the stands, watching their child. They’d travelled to the other side of the world to see me. These people who’d spent most of their lives in a villager, these people who loved and nurtured and supported me… there was no way in fucking hell… I had to keep going”.
She says, “Something reconnected between my mind and my body, some energy began to flow. I remember I started to really move”.
She finished second, winning silver (her silver was later upgraded to gold, when the first placed athlete was found to have been doping).
Years later, at the 2019 Rugby World Cup Springbok rugby captain Siya Kolisi and coach Rassie Erasmus, would echo Semenya, reminding that team that they weren’t playing for themselves, but for the whole country and won. They did it again in 2023.
We always achieve more when our efforts are yoked to a purpose and vision beyond ourselves.
A week after the Olympics, whilst training, Semenya felt her right knee click again. Her then coach, Mozambican Maria Mutola, insisted they continue and by the time she’d finished, her knee was three times its normal size. The injury meant she didn’t qualify for the 2013 World Championships and by mid-2014 she decided she needed a break and stopped running and training.
She took two lessons from this period.
First, “sometimes the mistake athletes-turned-coaches make is treating the athletes they’re training as if they are an extension of themselves. Maria only wanted to implement what had worked for her on me. And, like I said, Maria was a beast. We were similar athletes, but we weren’t the same. Maria was about perfection, hitting whatever the plan was for that day, no matter what. That had worked for her. I was more intuitive when it came to workouts”.
A leader’s challenge is enabling others to be their best (I love Ritz Carlton founder, Horst Schulze’s comment on this topic). All of us easily make the mistake of imposing our way and in the process inadvertently do damage. The best leaders listen.
Second, “This period of my life taught me a lot. Sometimes quitting is the right thing to do. There are times when ‘powering through’ really does more harm than good”.
At the Olympics, she contemplated quitting, didn’t and won silver. A week later, she contemplated quitting, didn’t and triggered a performance damaging injury. We like to look for absolute rules to guide our behaviour – “Winners don’t quit”. Well, sometimes they do. Sometimes, they don’t. Those who win consistently, pay attention to context, and adapt.
There is much more to say, but I’ll restrict myself to these two comments.
Commentators criticised her for ‘looking effortless’, underneath that the implication that she was faking, holding back.
The comments took me to Teju Cole’s Tremor in which his protagonist Tunde reflects on performances of West African super groups like Orchestre Rail-Band de Bamako and Bembeya Jazz National, “Whatever was played was played with focus and with that effortless virtuosity that is a byword for Manding musicianship – but one should never call virtuosity effortless” and “To say that someone is doing something effortlessly is to betray ignorance of the effort they put into it”. Ignorance. Indeed.
As a teenage athlete, a school administrator gifts Semenya a pair of second-hand running spikes, “I asked if he was sure several more times. I remember my spirit lifted. I was being seen”.
Throughout her journey, people find ways to support. The University of Pretoria closed ranks around her, protecting her from malicious media. When, in May 2013 after her injury, the South African Olympic Committee, withdrew her funding, Nike stood by her and kept her sponsorships in place. In each moment, individuals either took principled decisions or abandoned them. It is a reminder to all of us; we sit in places of influence, no matter how modest and when we act to create possibilities, second-hand shoes can spark a revolution.
I wish you a wonderful week. South Africans, happy voting on Wednesday. It’s been thirty years since Nelson Mandela surrounded by some of the world’s finest leaders and thinkers led us into democracy. It’s been a rocky ride, but Caster Semenya’s story could only happen in our democracy. For my part, I’m both eternally grateful to those who fought for this gift and am voting for some of the new faces on the ballot paper. Any system, any organisation, Parliament included, benefits from fresh thinking. Enough people will vote for established parties to ensure institutional continuity, I’d like some new voices.
Best wishes
Karl
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PPS: You might enjoy Leadership Lessons from Siya Kolisi and Leadership Lessons from Rassie Erasmus.