Ondrej Charvat, Anastasia Sanchez, Hoda Kamel, Marina Roncelli

ISEG - Human Behaviour in Organisations 2017/18

Essay on Leadership: Malala Yousafzai

Characteristics: gender/age/race/nationality/profession or activity

As the leader for this assignment we chose a girl named Malala Yousafzai. Despite being only 20
years old, she is a recognized activist for female education rights and the youngest Nobel Prize
laureate (she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize at the age of 17). Malala was born in Swat District
of Pakistan, where she started writing a blog for BBC about the situation in her city that was under
influence of Taliban. She was only 11 years old and she was using a pseudonym for safety reasons.
Today, Malala studies at University of Oxford and runs her own organisation that is helping girls and
women all around the world to get access to education.

Why did you choose this leader?

There are many reasons why we chose this leader but here are the most important ones. First, she is
a girl at our age or even couple years younger and she has already achieved more than most of us
will in our lifetime. While fighting for female education in the world, she risked her own life by
speaking out against Taliban and she was actually shot and severely injured during a murder attempt
when she was 15. That did not stop her pursuing her mission for a better world. She has collected
over 50 awards and honours, including the Nobel Prize, which more than justifies our choice and her
achievements.

What characteristics does this leader have?

Malala has a strong vision supported by her empathy and past experience of being banned from
school in her hometown by Taliban. Since she started blogging at 11 for BBC, was filmed in a
documentary and also made speeches at several top universities, parliaments of countries and
before the UN, she proved she is able to communicate professionally and tell her point and message.
Malala founded her own non-profit organization with her father, so she is capable of leading and
convincing many people to follow for a good cause.
What was his/her main accomplishment in your view?

In today’s world, where women are still fighting for equal rights in some regions, this young girl is
changing the perception and life of others while giving her childhood away. She devoted her life to
helping other women and she even changed the degree she is studying because she thinks she can
help more people as Politian. In 12th July 2015, on Malala’s 18 birthday, her organization opened a
school in Lebanon (near the Syrian border) to provide Syrian refugees with education. Despite having
many at her account, we think that the main accomplishments are still in the future for her and that
Malala Yousafzai will stun the world again. To finish this paper, we present her slogan from the
webpage of her organization:

If one girl with education can change the world, what can 130 million do?

Sources:

https://www.malala.org/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malala_Yousafzai