Leadership and Famous People
Senior 4 · English
Leadership and Famous People
Lesson 1 of 5
25 min
Let's begin
Write down the name of a leader. Now write down the name of someone who changed your life. The two names are probably different, and the second list is often the more interesting one. This lesson's article asks what leadership really is, how Rwanda's own traditions answer that question, and what three very different role models, a sports pioneer, a cyclist and a village mediator, have in common.
A feature article written by Ganzaa. The facts about Félicité Rwemarika, Adrien Niyonshuti and Rwanda's home-grown solutions come from the sources listed at the end of the lesson. The third portrait is imagined.
1 Ask a class to name a leader, and the answers come quickly: a president, a head teacher, a team captain. Ask the same class to name someone who changed their life, and the answers come more slowly: a grandmother, a coach, a neighbour who once lent a bicycle. Both lists are about leadership. A leader is not simply a person with a title. A leader is someone who helps a group to see where it should go, helps it to get there, and accepts responsibility for the result. A role model is someone whose example others choose to follow, often without ever being asked.
2 After the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, Rwanda drew on its own culture and traditions to rebuild the way it is governed. The practices that came out of this are known as home-grown solutions, and several of them put leaders in front of the people they serve. In Umuganda, the community work held on the last Saturday of every month, adults work side by side, and afterwards residents and their local leaders discuss what the village needs. Under Imihigo, performance contracts first signed in public on 4 April 2006, district mayors commit to written targets for the coming year, with indicators that show whether they have been met. Abunzi, community mediators, help neighbours to settle disputes, and Umushyikirano, the National Dialogue Council, brings leaders and citizens together in a national dialogue. The idea behind all four is the same: leadership is a promise made in public, and a leader must answer for it.
3 Félicité Rwemarika, born in 1958, trained as a nurse in Uganda before she turned to sport. She founded the Association of Kigali Women in Sports (AKWOS), which uses sport to support women affected by the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, and she later served on the Women's Football Commission of the Rwandan Football Federation. In 2016 she received the International Olympic Committee's award for women and sport for the African continent, and in 2018 she became the first Rwandan elected to the IOC as an independent member. Her leadership has been the kind that opens a door and then holds it open for others.
4 Adrien Niyonshuti was seven years old when he survived the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, in which six of his brothers were killed. As a teenager in Rwamagana, in the Eastern Province, he began racing on a bicycle his uncle had given him. In 2009 he became the first Rwandan cyclist to ride in the European professional peloton, and at the London Olympics in 2012 he raced in the mountain-bike event and carried Rwanda's flag at the opening ceremony. The next year he opened a cycling academy in his home town, so that young riders could have the chance he had been given. He led first by example, and then by building a road for others.
5 The third role model has no medals. Mrs Nyiraneza is sixty-one and serves as a mediator in her cell. When two neighbours stopped speaking over the boundary between their fields, she did not take sides. She listened to each of them separately, walked the boundary with both of them on a Sunday afternoon, and asked what each of them really needed. In the end they agreed to plant a row of trees along the line and to share the fruit. Nobody outside the cell knows her name, but every family in it knows that she is fair.
6 What do the three have in common? Each of them saw a need before anyone asked them to act. Each of them stayed with the work when it was slow and unrewarded. And each of them made room for other people: women on the football pitch, young riders on the road, two angry neighbours under the same trees. None of them is perfect, and none of them worked alone. That may be the most useful lesson of all. Leadership does not begin when someone gives you a title. It begins wherever you stand: as a class monitor, as a team captain, or as the friend who says, "Come on, let's fix this."
Definition
Glossary
| Expression | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| lead by example | show others what to do by doing it yourself | Our captain leads by example: she is first at training. |
| set an example (to) | behave in a way others should copy | Prefects should set an example to younger students. |
| take responsibility (for) | accept that something is your duty or your fault | A good leader takes responsibility for mistakes. |
| pave the way (for) | make it possible for others to follow | Rwemarika paved the way for women footballers. |
| make a difference | have a good effect | One mediator can make a difference to a whole cell. |
| give back (to) | help the community that helped you | Niyonshuti gave back by opening an academy. |
| break barriers | overcome limits that stopped people before | She broke barriers in a sport run by men. |
| be accountable to | have to explain your actions to | Mayors are accountable to their districts. |
Worked example: summarising a profile in one sentence
Task: Summarise paragraph 4 in one sentence of no more than 30 words.
Tip
Read profiles for the pattern: need → action → obstacle → result → legacy. Most short biographies follow it. Find the five parts and you can summarise, compare or write about any leader.
Warning
Adrien Niyonshuti: Rwanda's cycling ambassador, Olympics channel (about 3 minutes, 2018). Listen to how he talks about his Rio 2016 race and about the future, and note one thing that shows him as a role model.
Practice
Key points
Sources and credits
Quick check
According to the article, what makes someone a leader?
