By Kassim Mohamed 

In this era when institutions are failing on daily occurrence and countries are disintegrating to a point of no return, it is incredibly difficult to find leaders who are talented and intuitively enough to innovate communities and/or companies and lead beyond their comfortable zone.

Nevertheless, against all odds, it comes as an exciting and at the same time very encouraging news  that on December 4, 2014 Mrs. Sahra Hirsi, originally from Somalia simultaneously won two awards from Tucson Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Tucson, Arizona. The Woman of the Year” and she is awarded to 40 under 40 prize at the same time. In reality, 40 under 40 is an award given every year to the 40 ascending stars under the age of 40 years in Arizona. For her personal dedication, commitment and visionary style of leadership among her community, Sahra is recognized “

There are rare achievement that only few people can manage to deliver by not a mere chance but through required leadership duality combining internal insights,  to tackle the day to day technical challenges and push forward the external fronts to solve adaptive challenges. It is particularly Somali saga where wicked problems always undercut the effort of good intentioned individuals and obscured their potential achievements.

Sahra superseded the above qualities and by her demonstration to win two competitive awards at the same time. The essence of Sahra’s achievement has the foundation of three elements: candid Personal commitment coupled with her courage, modeling, and inspiring leadership practices; family background where her parents raised her to believe in herself and act upon responsibly; and accumulation of acquired academics and earned experience backgrounds. She has the charisma of effectively utilizing the available resources and the unique intellect to make new innovations.

Sahra lived in USA little less than a decade and she is the founder of Hirsi Enterprises. That is umbrella of five different companies all based in USA and she is in the process of creating at least one international business company. Sahra prudently leads from the future and she opts to make the goals set accomplished. She is basically a beacon of not only her community as well as the main stream community in her new country.

The question comes now is: Should we recognize our young leaders by their character and capacity? Sahra, of course has unique talents but she is not alone in the field of innovators and their inspiring leadership. It is without doubt that we have many Somali young leaders whose capacity and charisma can benefit greatly all of us if we can comprehend the perfect means to utilize their wisdom. Instead, it is like we are so over consumed by wicked social and economic problems that suffocated us beneath a barrier, which subjugated us. Indeed the likelihood that we nominally accept and applaud the novices is much greater than pinpointing leaders with talents, skills, and courage to inspire a shared vision. From time to time, other communities and their specific institutions recognize the potentiality of our young leaders.

In summary, I wish to express my gratitude to Sahra in part for your success of your prizes and your combined leadership style and practices that made possible what is remotely distant for others. Your inhibited transformational style will persuasively motivate more young people to follow your footsteps and finally lead the way, which can possibly assure us to challenge the gridlock that our community endured for many decades. I would encourage my people to recognize and respect the success of our leaders and one day, we will have more people who inclined supporting their leaders for their vision and courage to inspire and enable their people.

Kassim Mohamed
Email:kassimm7@gmail.com