To be successful, leaders must push for change. They know that what got them and their teams to where they are today will not be what the future requires. That is why they challenge others to experiment, to innovate, to try new ways of working. While challenging work processes and behaviors within a team or organization is hard, consider the extraordinary effort—and courage—it takes to challenge a nation’s culture to be innovative.
Twenty-three years ago, in a part of Pakistan where women and girls are often silenced, a girl was born who would one day use her voice to change the world. Her name is Malala Yousafzai and she has, in just 20 short years of life, challenged an entire nation to change.
Despite threats from Taliban terrorists who banned girls in her community from attending school, Malala’s father, a teacher, believed that his daughter should get an education. Malala bravely spoke out about the dangers she faced, writing a blog about her fears that the Taliban would attack her school.
The Taliban sought to retaliate and in October of 2012, as Malala and her friends were traveling home from school, a gunman stormed their school bus and shot her in the head.
Thankfully, Malala survived and despite all that, she suffered refused to be silenced. In the years since, she has traveled the globe fighting for girls’ education and won a Nobel Peace Prize for her extraordinary efforts. She did all of this before even finishing high school!
There are young people in every corner of the globe who are determined to get an education worthy of their promise, but many fall short without the encouragement to innovate and try new things. For Malala, it was the nurturing leadership of her father. As he describes in his TedTalk, Ziauddin Yousafzai challenged her to try new ways of living her life – to see herself as equally entitled to pursue a life of learning and independence.
Watch this TedTalk, then ask yourself how you might be able to encourage and nurture innovative thinking and action in others. Increasing the frequency of this behavior by even just 10% will produce great results!
