You Are the Anchor: Why Your First Opinion Costs More Than You Think

As a young boy growing up in the royal regent’s court of Thembuland, Nelson Mandela witnessed a weekly masterclass in leadership that would shape the course of history. He watched as his guardian, the regent, ran local tribal councils. When the chiefs gathered, they sat in a circle, and the regent sat quietly among them. Mandela noted that the meetings always proceeded in a peculiar fashion: the regent chief sat in absolute silence, listening to every minor sub-chief, advisor, and elder speak first. Only at the very end of the meeting—sometimes hours after it began—would the regent speak, summing up what he had heard and gently guiding the room toward a consensus.