Being a successful leader, with Elizabeth Nyamayaro
In season one of the #WERKINwith podcast, Hayley Sudbury spoke with former UN advisor and HeForShe movement founder, Elizabeth Nyamayaro.
Throughout the episode Elizabeth Nyamayaro speaks about diversity, inclusion, solutions for inequality, and her tips for being a good leader. Through roles as a senior advisor for UN Women, and heading the HeForShe movement, Elizabeth has implemented hugely successful global campaigns that have yielded actual change within gender inequality worldwide.
Here are three takeaways on leadership from the podcast.
What’s Elizabeth’s self-professed superpower?
A superpower is a secret ingredient that helps you to push yourself to new heights. Being able to recognise and hone yours will always help on the path to success.
“I think empathy is my biggest superpower. I grew up in a small village in Africa, I come from a very humble upbringing. I was raised by my grandmother. We had a drought, I almost died from malnutrition. Having that empathy for humanity and recognising how intertwined we are, and approaching relationships that way and trying to look at things in a less simplistic way has been invaluable to me” Elizabeth says.
Being empathetic can allow you to tap into other ways of thinking: other perspectives, voices, concepts. This has likely been instrumental for Elizabeth, who has found effective solutions to some of the biggest questions affecting contemporary society.
What does it mean to be a leader?
“The definition of what it means to be a leader, especially with this movement, is to remove obstacles. When I was young my grandmother always used to say that being a leader doesn’t mean being in front – it means removing obstacles so others can lead. I didn’t understand quite what that meant until I created the movement. Immediately I realised you do not create a movement, people create movements. You are a facilitator, you do all the wok behind the scenes and remove all the obstacles so that people can lead. This has really paid off in a big way.” Elizabeth says.
Teamwork makes the dream work, right? We all know this. A leader should oversee a team, of course, but the primary goal for this should be to make sure those individuals can do their best work. This means creating spaces in which superpowers can be utilised, and facilitating the chance for your staff to thrive.
When did you first experience inequality?
“I ended up having to leave the village and went to a city living with an aunt of mine. I was ten. I ended up at school for the first time, which was exciting. But when I was at this school, I learned one of my biggest lessons which was what it means to be unequal. In the village we were all sort of equal, you don’t notice disparity, you’ve always been part of the same environment. All of a sudden I was ten years old facing three sorts of inequality at the same time. Racial inequality, as it was a British school in Africa, gender inequality, and socio-economic inequality. I thought that when I went back to the village everything would be the same, but of course it wasn’t, because now I was the girl from the city. It made me realise how intertwined inequality is.” Elizabeth says.
I Am A Girl From Africa is Elizabeth Nyamayaro’s memoir, available now.
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