Dr. Chellie Spiller - Spheres Not Squares

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Dr. Chellie Spiller, (hapū Matawhaiti Iwitea, Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairoa), is based in Auckland and is a professor at the University of Waikato Management School.

Chellie is a passionate and committed advocate for Māori Business development. Her vision is to create relational wellbeing and wealth across spiritual, environmental, social, cultural, and economic dimensions, creating transformation in people, enabling them to claim their rightful place in the world, and embodying their sense of self.

Chellie’s leadership qualities are nourished by her academic achievements. Chellie was a Fulbright Senior Scholar at the Harvard Kennedy School and the University of Arizona. She is a recipient of a Research Excellence Award, Dame Mira Szászy Māori Alumni Award, and National Māori Academic Excellence Award. She is passionate about teaching on the postgraduate diploma in business administration (Māori development) where she specializes in management and governance.

Quotes From This Episode

• "I adamantly believe we cannot shoehorn indigenous leadership theory into Western theories. The best that Western theories can do is illuminate some aspect of indigenous leadership, because indigenous leadership is a whole belief system, a whole philosophy/ontology - it’s a way of life."
• "The invitation of indigenous holistic thinking is to enter a spherical world that’s more rounded, where we show up as whole people. And I guess it is that world of both/and. It’s more interwoven, relational - about the group relationships, group harmony, and group accomplishments, and process orientation."
• "It comes back to our deep sense of belonging. Belonging, not only to our families, our friends, our communities, but belonging to a place and belonging to the world and to the planet as well. So it really deepens this idea of what it means to belong."
• "So we make the difference between sphere intelligence and square intelligence -  square intelligence being cells and spreadsheets - that rational logic that can really dictate our path. Instead of stepping back and pausing, and just having that time to reflect and look around and tap into the wisdom within us as well."

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

• Chellie's Website
• TED Talk - Wayfinding Leadership
• Book - Wayfinding Leadership
• Book - Kazuo Ishiguro, and It’s Klara in the Sun
• Book - Midnight Library

Poem - The Mystery by Amergin

I am the wind that breathes upon the sea
I am the wave of the ocean
I am the murmur of the billows
I am the ox of the seven combats
I am the vulture upon the rocks
I am a beam of the sun
I am the fairest of plants
I am a wild boar in valour
I am a salmon in the water
I am a lake in the plain
I am a word of science
I am the point of the lance of battle
I am the God who created in the head the fire
Who is it who throws light into the meeting on the mountain?
Who announces the ages of the moon?
Who teaches the place where couches the sun? (If not I?)

About The International Leadership Association (ILA)

• The ILA was created in 1999 to bring together professionals with a keen interest in the study, practice, and teaching of leadership. 

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