November 15, 2023

S9-Ep48: A Genocide Survivor's Path to Leadership - How One Man Turned Trauma into Passion for Peace

34 minutes

Guests: Hyppolite Ntigurirwa & Mike Hardy

Seeing your family members tortured and murdered will have a major influence on your leadership mindset. But not necessarily in the ways that you think.

Hyppolite Ntigurirwa survived the Rwandan genocide as a child. Growing up, he thought of vengeance and retribution. But after encountering exceptional kindness, his mindset shifted – and he now leads efforts for peace and reconciliation. As he reveals his gripping story, Mike Hardy joins the conversation to discuss his friendship with Hyppolite, and his own work in pointing leaders to peace.

Here's what Hyppolite, Mike, and Maureen cover:

The atrocities young Hyppolite witnessed, and why humanity still practices such hatred;

The simple acts that turned Hyppolite’s heart from revenge to reconciliation; and

Steps leaders at any level can take to help people remember their humanity.

Trigger Warning: This episode discusses rape, murder, and other atrocities of genocidal acts.

This episode was produced in partnership with the International Leadership Association: https://ilaglobalnetwork.org.

Other episodes you'll enjoy:

ShEquity: A Refugee’s Path to Empowering Women & Their Businesses with Pauline Koelbl

Finding Peace in Conflict: Northern Ireland and Beyond with Lord John Alderdice

Cultivating Empathy through Authenticity with Jason Lioy

For daily wisdom from our guests, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn. We’re on Instagram, Threads, and Twitter, too!

RESOURCES:

Hyppolite’s powerful memoir, A Boy Called Hyppo, is available at https://amzn.to/3MI38Pm.

Learn more about Hyppolite’s organization, BE THE PEACE, at https://commonstreet.org/be-the-peace. Information about the Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations – for which Mike was the founding director – is online at https://www.coventry.ac.uk/research/areas-of-research/trust-peace-social-relations. And the Yale initiative they both mentioned, the Jackson School of Global Affairs, has more information at https://jackson.yale.edu.

Our host Maureen Metcalf posts a newsletter every week on LinkedIn. You can subscribe here.

Maureen’s latest book is Innovative Leadership & Followership in the Age of AI. You’ll find details about it at https://bit.ly/LeaderInAI. Her other 10 books are available on Amazon here.

Books we’re reading for fun or personal development right now include:

Becoming Superman: My Journey from Poverty to Hollywood by J. Michael Straczynski

Own the AI Revolution by Neil Sahota

Time and Chance by Kim Campbell

Three Rocks: The Story of Ernie Bushmiller, the Man Who Created Nancy by Bill Griffith

Note: As an Amazon affiliate partner, we may receive a small commission on any books sold through these links.

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OUR PODCAST TEAM:

Host & Executive Producer: Maureen Metcalf

Editor & Producer: Dan Mushalko

Video & Graphics Editor: Devon Mushalko

Assistant Editor & Raconteur: Luigi Morelli

They’ve Got a Peaceful Easy Feeling: Jenna Reik & Mike Morrow-Fox

CONNECT WITH US:

YouTube: @InnovatingLeadership

Threads: @innovativeleaders

Twitter: @IL_Institute

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Website: InnovativeLeadershipInstitute.com

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About Our Guests:

Mike Hardy is Chair of Intercultural Relations and a founding Director of the Centre for Trust, Peace, and Social Relations at Coventry University. He is adjunct professor of leadership at the LSPR Institute of Communications and Business in Jakarta, Indonesia. Mike has been twice honoured in the UK, awarded the OBE in 2001 for his peace-building work in the Middle East, and appointed a Companion of Honour of St Michael and St George (CMG) in the HM Queen’s Birthday Honours June 2010 for his work internationally in Intercultural Dialogue.

Mike is a Board Director and Chair of the International Leadership Association (www.ila-net.org), Chair of Trustees of The Faith and Belief Forum (http://faithbeliefforum.org) the leading interfaith charity in the UK, and life-fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts.

Hyppolite Ntigurirwa survived the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. When he was seven years old Hyppolite, lost many members of his extended family and witnessed the murder of his beloved father. He struggled after the genocide to gain an education and to learn to forgive the killers.

By the age of thirty he had graduated from university in Rwanda and worked as a journalist and radio presenter, a playwright and a theatre director. He raised enough money to travel to England and achieved a Masters Degree in Sociology from Bristol University. He started a foundation for peace in Rwanda, and travelled to America to deliver a series of lectures at universities using theatre to address issues of hatred and racism being transmitted from one generation to the next.

In 2019, Hyppolite became an international news item when he performed a hundred-day walk across 1,500 kilometres of Rwanda to mark the 25th anniversary of the genocide, inviting people to join him and to share their stories of peace and forgiveness.

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