In this episode of How to Lead – 2025 Edition, Julia is joined by Zainah Anwar, a trailblazing feminist and human rights advocate whose decades of work have helped shift how women’s rights are understood and practised within Islamic legal and cultural frameworks.
Best known for founding Sisters in Islam and now leading the global movement Musawah, Zainah speaks with striking honesty about the realities of leadership when your work is seen as both revolutionary and controversial. From pushing for legal reform to confronting deeply patriarchal religious narratives, she reflects on what it means to stay the course when change is slow, resistance is strong, and public silence can sometimes speak louder than protest.
Zainah offers few guiding principles that shape her approach to leadership:
Courage: Leadership isn’t the absence of fear. It’s the decision to keep showing up, even when it would be easier not to.
Channelled outrage: Righteous anger alone won’t change a system. Progress demands patience, persistence, and the ability to transform frustration into constructive change.
Strategic Legacy: Effective leadership means understanding power, timing, and consequence. Your leadership is only as meaningful as the leaders you raise behind you.
Listen to this episode if you want to understand what it really takes to lead within, rather than against, complex systems. Zainah doesn’t just model resilience; she redefines what effective, enduring leadership can look like in 2025 and beyond.
More from this series
Subscribe to the Newsletter
Real Women. Real Insights. Real Leadership
Powered by
Women Emerging © 2025. All rights reserved