Malala Yousafzai and Her Leadership Style - Assignment Example

MALALA YOUSAFZAI AND HER LEADERSHIP STYLE Malala Yousafzai is a Pakistani woman born on 12 July 1997 in Mingora, Pakistan. This area is located in the country's Swat Valley. She attended one of the schools her father had founded in Swat valley, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of northwest Pakistan. In her early life, her hometown was a favourite tourist destination. However, this changed when the Taliban’s tried to take control of the town and banned education for girls (MalalaYousafzai, 2014). She advocated the girls right for education, which led her to receiving death threats from the Talibans. This eventually led to her shooting On October 9, 2012, which she survived. She was nominated for the Nobel peace prize in 2013 and 2014, winning it in the latter year, and becoming the youngest noble winner (The tribune, 2014). In her push in promoting education for the girl child, she has exhibited several leadership styles. The three main leadership styles are discussed to better understand her style and her influence on the society. Malala Yousafzai can be seen practicing both participative and laissez faire style of leadership as she is involved in promoting girls education through social media and other news channels. She is actively involved in the process, and she takes every opportunity she gets to pass across the message. Democratic or Participative leadership seeks to obtain cooperation of workers in achieving organizational goals by allowing them to participate in decision-making. It does not relieve the leader of his decision-making responsibilities of his power over subordinates, but it requires that he recognise subordinates as capable of contributing positively to decision making. Laissez Faire Style (Free Reign) does not depend on the leader to provide external motivation but, the workers motivate themselves based on their needs, wants and desires. They are given goals and left on their own to achieve them. The leader assumes the role of a group member. Her actions portray her as a strong willed woman who does not relent on her goal no matter what challenges come her way. She faced death threats from the Taliban but she did not give up on her mission to advocate the girl child education. She wrote a blog on the issue without fear of the threat she had received. This resulted in an attempted assassination that failed. She recovered from the injuries sustained with increased vigour to promote girls education on every platform she had. She is a bold leader as she was bold enough to confront President Barack Obama on the use of drone in strikes carried out in Pakistan (CNN, 2013). This portrays her as someone who does not fear when it comes to having a stand on what is right. She has a strong will to be able to confront a world leader at such a tender age on issues of great concern. She has faced a lot of opposition mainly from her home country on her stand and drive for women education. After giving her speech during a UN summit on 12 July 2013, she received a lot of criticism from the Pakistani people, and she was attacked on social media for her stand. However, she has fought against all the criticism, and she is pushing for what she believes in without being deterred by all the challenges she is facing (BBC, 2014). She is a charismatic leader as a majority of her followers and supporters are fascinated by her influence and her ability to make people listen to her and join hands in pushing for better access to education worldwide. Her speeches influence the masses with their intensity and the message being passed across. This has given her a large following and opened up bigger opportunities for her to go ahead with her drive of better access to education for the girl child. She has influenced many people in the world with her push for education for the girl child. Her stand and relentless push for better education and the changing of cultural barriers that hinder education has earned her a large following that include world leaders who have joined her campaign. This unrelenting push, despite all the challenges she is facing, has had a major influence in her gaining support from the world as it sees the determination and will of a teenager in making the world a better place. The UN secretary general Ban Ki Moon described her as a global teacher through her push for education as she was an example to all in the world (BBC, 2014). A leader will gain respect and following from the people if he can show relentless commitment to achieving his goals. The capacity to set goals as well as objectives and work towards them without fear of the challenges that will be faced will have a positive influence on the followers, as they will follow the example set. This will make the leader respected, and the followers will be willing to help achieve the goals set, as they will be self-motivated. The passion in what she does and her drive to promote girl education portrays her as a global leader. This passion can be seen as an influence to her getting all the support. As a leader, the followers or employees will follow what their leader does and the vigour exhibited in his quest to achieve what he set out to achieve. Her passion has a great influence to the people and it is among the factors that has made it conceivable for her to have such a great following and support. Appraisal A leader is a person with an influence on the action of others and she has portrayed many leadership qualities. Malala Yousafzai has portrayed many positive qualities that are associated with a leader. She does not have any formal power but she has an influence and following in the world over from just her writing and speeches. She has motivated world leaders and global organisations to help her in her push to promote for access to education for the girl child. She has gone against the popular culture in her region and has relentlessly pushed for better education. In addition, she is a risk taker, as she does not stop the drive to achieve her goals even with the threat of death. This shows that she has a strong character (Theguardian, 2014). References BBC Asia. (2014). Profile: Malala Yousafzai. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-23241937 BBC news. (2014). Diary of a Pakistani school girl. Retrieved from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7834402.stm CNN political unit. (2013). Political Tickers. Malala confronts Obama: Retrieved from http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/10/11/obamas-meet-with-malala/ Malala Yousafzai. (2014). The Biography. Retrieved from http://www.biography.com/people/malala-yousafzai-21362253#synopsis. Malala Yousafzai. (2014). Malala Yousafzai. Retrieved from http://www.malala-yousafzai.com/ Theguardian. (2014). Malala: The girl who stood up for education and changed the world. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2014/oct/28/review-malala-yousafzai-girl-who-stood-up-education-changed-the-world Thetribune. (2014). Malala Yousafzai becomes youngest-ever Nobel Prize winner. Retrieved from http://tribune.com.pk/story/773258/malala-yousafzai-shares-nobel-peace-prize-with-indian-activist/ Read More