Storytelling Leadership: Connecting heart, mind, body and spirit to stories of the old days and old ways of Labrador By Shelley T. Price A Thesis Submitted to Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Nova Scotia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Business Administration September 2020, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada © Shelley T. Price, 2020 Approved: Dr. Cathy Driscoll Supervisor Approved: Dr. Renée Hulan Committee Member Approved: Dr. Christopher Hartt Committee Member Approved: Dr. Joseph Gladstone External Examiner Date: September 22, 2020 ABSTRACT Storytelling Leadership: Connecting heart, mind, body and spirit to stories of the old days and old ways of Labrador By Shelley T. Price 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. 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. 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. September 22, 2020 ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS To those who have been a part of my life story, I extend my deepest gratitude: To all of my Elders, past and present, spirit and bodied…to those whose teachings have supported and guided me gently through my life. Thank you for being present in all the moments of my becoming! Nakummesuak! To the Elders who shared their wisdoms through tellings of their lived experiences in the THEM DAYS story network, Nakummesuak, Tshinashkumitin, and Thank You! Thank you to THEM DAYS Inc. for being dedicated to collecting, protecting, and sharing the old days and old ways of Labrador. To the vast Inuit lands (Inuit Nunangat) and to all of the Inuit land and culture protectors, past and present, spirit and bodied, who have been and continue to be stewards of our lands and our culture. Nakummesuak! To this land, acknowledging that Saint Mary’s University is in Kjipuktuk in Mi’kma’ki, the traditional and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq. I extend my gratitude to the Mi’kmaw land stewards (L’nu), past and present, spirit and bodied, who have been and continue to be stewards of these lands. I am a beneficiary of the treaties of Peace and Friendship. We are all treaty people. Wela’lioq! To all of those who are actively and ongoingly working to disrupt the systems of oppression and exploitation, I thank you! I hope to find ways to engage in allyship and stand with you on your journey. #BlackLivesMatter #MMIWG #Pride #MentalHealthAwareness #MakeMuskratRight #ClimateAction #IndigenousRights To my supervisor, Cathy Driscoll for always believing in me and supporting me in the story of my academic life. Thank you! To my committee: Chris Hartt and Renée Hulan. Your contributions to my journey have been inspirational. Thank you! To all of the Indigenous scholars whose work has offered me guidance, Thank you! To all of the Indigenous students, I hope my learning journey continues in service to you throughout yours. To my Research Advisory Group: Mitzi Wall, Debbie Smith, Joe Goudie, Tammy Williams, Carma Claw, Denise Cole, Delilah Saunders, and Diane Obed. To Joan Dicker who supported me with translations from English to Labrador Inuttitut. To Gretchen Pohlkamp, your generosity in providing editorial services. I cannot express the gratitude in words. Without all of your assistance, I would never have felt comfortable submitting this dissertation for publication. To my Atelihai (Welcome) Inuit Community, I cannot express how much I needed you on this journey and how much our community has offered me strength through the struggles. To the NunatuKavut Community Council for supporting me through a bursary for my PhD. To Indspire for supporting me through a bursary for my PhD. To the PhD iii Project for supporting diversity and recognizing the importance of representation in the Academy. Nakummesuak! To my friends, Heidi, Sarah, Taz, Bobbi, Barry, Tatiana, Alexandr, Tammy, Heather, and Michelle. Thank you for listening all these years. I know I sacrifice time with you for my work; I am grateful to you for all your forgivenesses. To Nicole, thank you for being on this journey with me. In May 2013, when I met you, I knew we were on a tough journey, but I could not be more grateful than to have been on it together with you. To Suz, I miss you! Thank you for helping me find a spiritual path toward healing. Your lessons will forever be cherished. Sussana Sussanaulautuk ikKaumajavut nallinivullu ikumagijavut! To Dave, Cayden, and Owen for helping fill life with music and laughter. Thank you! To my parents - Jim and May Price (nee Hope). To my mother, everyday you share your love of Labrador with us through the stories of home. The love of Labrador is part of who you are and how you live. To my dad, your love of the lands and the lessons you share with us while on the land are incredible. This very difficult journey began with you as my teachers, guides, supporters, and heroes…and I will continue to learn from you both every day. To all of my family: my brother and sister, nephews, niece, cousins, uncles, and aunties, thank you! To Jack, I love you! Thank you for all of the much-needed breaks throughout this very long journey. Thank you for your love, patience, and compassion. Everything I do, I do with a desire to show you that a life worth living is one where you follow your passions and live your wholehearted life. You will always be my greatest hero and inspiration on this journey toward creating safer, just, and equitable places and spaces for the future generations. Nakummek, Wela’lin, Merci, Спасибо and Thank you! To all my relations! iv TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES Table 5.1. Analysis of relationships to various non-Indigenous theories of leadership Table 5.2. Modeling and knowledge transference: These Days at THEM DAYS Table 6.1. Role of non-humans in mainstream and non-traditional non-Indigenous theories of leadership Table 6.2. Communities of actor-actant-action-network agencies that act as loci, mechanisms, and foci Table 6.3. Thematic clusters from the Labrador story network and their meanings Angry again, angry again Table 6.4. Safe boundaries and planetary boundaries and how they relate to the thematic clusters from the stories about leadership. Leadership includes safe boundaries. LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1. The Coin Model of Systems of Oppression (source: Nixon, 2019) Figure 1.2. Kate Raworth’s Economic model for a strong social foundation while respecting natures limits. Figure 2.1. Great Grandmother and Baby Robert Bruce in Upitik Bay ~ 1927 Figure 2.2. Nanny Isobel (Grace) Hope (nee Goudie) in loving contemplation of the THEM DAYS stories and Papa Rank Earl Hope Figure 2.3. The Peoples of Labrador (Solidarity) Figure 2.4. The Peoples of Labrador (Distinction) Figure 2.5. Social, political, and discursive forces shaping the identity constructions of the peoples of Labrador Figure 2.6. The Peoples of Labrador respecting individual and community self- determination Figure 2.7. Inuit Regions of Canada (source: https://www.itk.ca/about-canadian- inuit/#nunangat) Figure 2.8. Fear (Artist: Uncle Earl Hope - with permission) Figure 3.1. Meaning-making through the story-acts approach (Price, Hartt, Cole & Barnes, 2019, p.22) Figure 3.2. Connecting story-act to meaning making in a story-net Figure 3.3. Paddling Figure 3.4. Family Figure 3.5. Feeling like superheroes Figure 3.5. Aunt Mitzi and her first seal harvest Figure 3.6. Healing takes time (source:https://www.thedepressionproject.com/whatwedo) Figure 3.7. Jack and I spending time on the land with Aunt Mitzi and Uncle Kev Figure 3.8. Dad after a successful harvest Figure 4.1. From Hernandez et al. (2011) Loci and mechanisms of leadership Figure 4.2. Cameron’s (2003) Deviance continuum. v Figure 4.3. Table of similarities and differences between ethical, spiritual, authentic and transformational theories of leadership, borrowed from Brown & Treviño (2006) Figure 4.4. Inuit qaujimajatuqangit and precepts (Source: Wenzel, 2004, p.