Planning for the Future: The Role of Indigenous Public Service Leadership

AFOA British ColumbiaHR Conference 23 September

2015Catherine Althaus

Context• Personal transformation• Gaps in knowledge and shared experience• TRC Call to Action #57• Belief that the public sector has potential to be a

site of reconciliation and healing

Outline• Acknowledgements• Vignettes• Research Questions• Methodology• Jurisdiction Backgrounder• Literature Review • Statistics• Preliminary Findings • Takeaways

Acknowledgements

• Participants• Gerda van Dijk, Bill Ryan, Daryn Bean, Te Aroha Hohaia,

Fiona Main, Mike Phillips, Heather Johnston, Rebecca Middleton, Janet Leonard, Robina Thomas, Anthony Corbett, and Lyndon Murphy

• SSHRC, ANZSOG

Vignettes• ...there was one other

Aboriginal manager at the time and we were both being asked to participate in everything. People really seemed to want to hear what we had to say. It wasn’t terribly long though before it began to become uncomfortable. We began to realize that we were tokens at various tables...and nobody really wanted to hear what we had to say but they wanted to tick off that box of their membership.

Vignettes II

• Three of our Aboriginal public servants are in reporting relationships in the public service that are a direct opposite to their kinship status. They’re good about it, but it’s not easy for them and I can only imagine what they have had to do to adjust to this imposed hierarchy…I think they also feel that they cannot stand up against those ‘in power’ up the hierarchy… they are too respectful a people

• Non-Indigenous Australians from an English-speaking background tend to assume that concepts such as ‘fairness’ are universal. It follows that any system of governance that does not rest on such universal principles must either be ‘bad’ or ‘unprincipled’… In the Yolngu view… good governance does not depend crucially on western notions such as ‘fairness’.

Vignettes III• I think the people who

consider themselves Indigenous public servants rather than public servants who happen to be Indigenous, do so because we see an affinity with the Indigenous public above and beyond our job title and our work location. I hold myself accountable to Indigenous people and not just to my employers.

• I think one of the big differences is just in authenticity, wholeness and authenticity…. you do want to know the person. That's part of our culture, our protocols, who are you from, who are your mother and father? Your grandfather, who are your aunties, uncles, where are you from? It's a more impersonal role- oriented nature in leadership within western organizations. I mean so many people will just introduce themselves by their title and it tells you nothing about the person.

Questions

• Do public services and Indigenous cultures share common or conflicting notions of leadership? • What possibilities and

challenges exist for Indigenous peoples to exercise leadership within western bureaucracies?

Methodology• Relationship• Comparative case study• Statistics• Literature reviews• Qualitative, semi-structured interviews• Indigenous researchers and advisors• Incorporates and acknowledges

indigenous methodology and 4 Rs - respect, relevance, reciprocity and responsibility

• Exploratory – much more needs to be done

Comparison Population (Millions)

New Z

eala

nd

Briti

sh C

olum

bia

Queen

slan

d

North

Wes

t0

1

2

3

4

5

PopulationIndigenous Popula-tion

Comparison Indigenous Public Servants (%)

New Zea-land

Canada Australia South Africa

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

% population% public service% executive

‘Publicly available documents indicate Aboriginal bureaucrats exist but there is very little information beyond that’.

Existing Literature

Traditional Leadership

Information on traditional leadership indicates there should be no assumption that Western notions of leadership will hold or that Western models of leadership offer appropriate analytical tools.

Contemporary Applicability?

Statistics - Queensland

1993/94

1994/95

1995/96

1996/97

1997/98

1998/99

1999/00

2000/01

2001/02

2002/03

2003/04

2004/05

2005/06

2006/07

2007/08

2008/09

2009/10

2010/11

2011/12

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

Proportion of Indigenous employees in the QPS

Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Employment in the QPS, % at each Salary Level 1993/4 and 2012/13

Salary level 1993/94 2012/13

  Indigenous Non-Indigenous Indigenous Non-Indigenous

A08+ 0.2 1.3 2.6 7.2

A08 0.2 1.1 2.5 6.2

A07 0.9 2.4 3.2 5.5

A06 2.3 5.8 13.1 21.4

A05 4.5 17.8 11.1 16.2

A04 8.1 13.4 14.5 13.2

A03 17.4 18.4 21.1 14.0

A01/2 63.3 38.9 31.7 16.3

Statistics - Australia

1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 20120

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

Proportion of Indigenous Employees in the APS

Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Employment in the APS, % at each Salary Level 1993/4 and 2010/11

Salary level 1993/94 2010/11

  Indigenous All Indigenous All

SES 0.4 1.4 0.5 1.8

Executive level 4.1 14.6 13.0 26.4

APS 5-6 17.5 26.2 29.5 34.6

APS 3-4 35.0 29.6 43.2 33.0

APS 1-2 40.6 27.3 10.0 3.1

Trainees & Grad 1.4 0.7 3.8 1.1

Statistics – British Columbia

Aborig

inal

Relatio

ns an

d Rec

oncil

iatio

n

Child

ren an

d Family

Dev

elopmen

t

Public

Safety

& Sol

icito

r Gen

eral

Natural

Res

ource

s Opera

tions

Socia

l Dev

elopmen

t

Transp

ortatio

n and I

nfrastr

uctu

re

Educa

tion

Labou

r

Scien

ce an

d Univ

ersiti

es

Energ

y

Enviro

nment

Agricu

lture

Citize

ns' S

ervice

s

Health

Serv

ices

Fores

ts, M

ines

, and

Lan

ds

Attorn

ey G

enera

l

BC Publ

ic Se

rvice

Age

ncy

Commun

ity, S

port

and C

ultu

ral D

evelo

pmen

t

Regio

nal E

cono

mic an

d Ski

lls D

evelo

pmen

t

Fina

nce

Enviro

nmental

Asse

ssmen

t Offi

ce *

Office

of th

e Prem

ier *

Public

Affa

irs B

ureau *

Touris

m, Trad

e and

Inve

stmen

t *0

1

2

3

4

5

6

76.6

4.9

3.73.5 3.4 3.3 3.2 3.2

2.9 2.72.4 2.2 2.2 2.2 2.1 2 1.8 1.7

1.5 1.3

Percentage of Aboriginal Peoples by Ministry

Ministry

Percentage of Employees who are Aboriginal

Preliminary Findings (Canada)• No, there is not one specific understanding of

leadership across diverse Aboriginal Public Servants• There was a common personal approach to the way

work that is undertaken by Indigenous Public Servants

• Walking in two worlds, building bridges, ham in the sandwich, acting as an interface may be an outcome for some Indigenous Public Servants that comes from the personal desire to make an impact for their peoples

• Challenges are a by-product of this approach

Preliminary Findings (Canada)  CATEGORIES

Individual Leadership

Indigenous Leadership

Bureaucratic/BC Public Service

Walking in two worlds (as an Aboriginal Public Servant)

   

PROPERTIES

(Dimensions)

Integrity Benefit for all

Limiting understandings of leadership in the BC Public Service

Cultural competency  

Vision Walking the talk rooted in cultural values

Leadership perspectives in the BC Public Service Corporate Context

Cultural agility

Humility Holistic view of persons

Challenges in the space between

 

Self-concept

Linking Theme

It’s personal, not individual

Comparison

New Zealand Canada Australia

Co-created pathCeremoniesPersonalization

Recognize need but no clarity (will?) to do

State funding to Indigenous organizations but no mainstreaming

Take-Aways• Understandings of Leadership• Links to Traditional but not on gender• Skills match to modern public sector• Challenge to Weber

• Practices of Leadership• Pre-choice• Churn, racist glass ceilings• Link to communities• Burden of representation and bridge-building

(monocultural)• Cultural safety• Taboo

A Question

• How workplace organisation, processes, meanings, rules and routines, play out with Indigenous PS leadership; the extent to which their values and ways are subsumed OR they transform western bureaucratic ways and norms?

Planning for the Future….• Recognition of challenges and contributions• Space for stories to be told and shared• “Give-back” to Indigenous public service

communities an articulation of fit with contemporary public service & agendas;

• Identify training and transformation for non-Indigenous public service

Shared Voices (Dylan Thomas)