by Spirit Lake Consulting, Inc.
Courageous
Leadership
When I was finishing up my
Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership at the
University of North Dakota I met with the Department
professors and one of the questions they asked me went
something like this: “Erich, the Native Americans in
our Leadership program were always commenting that our
curriculum is not relevant to the issues faced by Native
American leaders on Indian Reservations. How can we change
that”? After thinking for a moment about all the
dysfunction on the reservation I replied, “You could
place more emphasis on the traditional Indian values of
courage, honesty, and generosity.”
Is fear a new Indian tradition?
How could I possibly say that about my own people when we
have a proud tradition and history as warriors? The Sioux,
as were all Indian Tribes, were known for their extreme
bravery.
Yet, one of our favorite tactics to accomplish our goals is
to use fear rather than fairness and decency. We organize
family, friends, and attack anyone who disagrees with us to
frighten them into giving into our demand. We use fear to
the extent that most tribal employees are afraid to speak
up when they see someone committing a wrongful act, because
of fear.
Everywhere we look we see the result of fear; policy and
procedures ignored, nepotism, and favoritism is rampant
throughout our work places, people are fired without due
process, we have a high unemployment yet a huge number of
our jobs are filled with non-Indians, and/or non- tribal
members. Yet, tribal members, and tribal leaders alike, are
afraid to speak up due to fear.
Click here to read more about the obstacles
to courageous leadership.....