Storytelling leadership : connecting heart, mind, body and spirit to stories of the old days and old ways of Labrador

Abstract

The THEM DAYS stories of the old days and old ways of Labrador have offered me some leadership advise. This dissertation is a personal story of my uncomfortable long loving deeply contemplative multisensory learning journey. I attempt to guide you through this journey, much of which is emotional, spiritual, and relational.<br> Leadership in the THEM DAYS network is often about enduring hardship and honouring the spectrums of human emotions that come with the lived experience. The leadership is not always about being strong and in control; it is also about accepting strength from others when the time or timing calls for it and having the endurance and patience to bring strength in. Many of the non-Indigenous forms of leadership position humans as the source of leadership and human traits, behaviours, cognition, and affect as central in the leadership process. I have come to understand leadership as a dynamic, multiple, and interconnected ecosystem, whereas stories centre human and non-human actors; corporeal and non-corporeal actants; past, present, and future actions; individual, collective, and intercorporeal networks; through time, space, and plane. The leadership ecosystem includes heart, mind, body, and spirit ways of being, knowing, doing, and relating. The stories also focused on what is worthy of leading toward (the value-laden foci) such as individual and collective safety, health, wellbeing, dignity, sustainability, resilience, strength, solidarity, compassion, and gratitude. Leadership, learning, and teaching are interconnected concepts within the network. Themes such as self-love, compassion, gratitude, respect, connection, and resistance emerged from within the stories along with ways of transmitting knowledge as sharing, listening, modelling, mimicking, contemplating, failing, co-creating, co-dreaming, co-emerging, co-learning, co-producing, and collaborating.<br> The stories of Labrador have helped me to welcome my anger, hardship, sadness, love, compassion, respect, and gratitude on my journey toward decolonizing leadership, leadership education, and practice.