Challenges lead to Innovation…

One of the key behaviors that leaders engage in to be successful is that they challenge people to try out new and innovative ways to do their work.  It is even more difficult to challenge cultures to be innovative.  Twenty years ago, in a part of Pakistan where women and girls are so 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 twenty short years of life, challenged an entire culture to be more innovative.

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. And 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 she refused to be silenced. In the years since, she has traveled the globe, fighting for girls’ education, and she won a Nobel Peace Prize for her extraordinary efforts. She did all of this before even finishing high school!

To learn more about me, click here.

After watching the video below, ask yourself how you might be able to challenge people to try out new and innovative ways to do their work – more often and increase the frequency of this behavior by just 10%!

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My leadership journey began more than than 25 years ago with The Leadership Challenge, the most trusted source on becoming a better leader.  So far, more than 2 million copies of the book have been published in over in over 20 languages. Based on Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner’s extensive global research, this life changing approach to leadership and their enduring work is critical to help us navigate the world of work today.  The basic premise is that leadership is a relationship that must be nurtured and, most important, that it can be learned.