Getting our Bearings in a
Moving World
Prof. Chellie Spiller
Chellie Spiller (Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairoa, Pākehā) is Professor of Leadership and Management at Waikato Management School in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Her work sits at the meeting place of Indigenous knowledge, leadership, relationality, systems change and lived experience. Across research, teaching, writing and facilitation, she explores how people and organisations find their way through uncertainty, how leadership is shaped through relationship and place, and how different knowledge systems can open possibilities for more just, regenerative futures.
Chellie’s scholarship includes Wayfinding Leadership, The Catalyst’s Way, Indigenous approaches to leadership and management, Māori economies of wellbeing, stewardship and cultural intelligence. Her work draws together academic research, Indigenous knowledge and the experience of people working in communities and organisations around the world.
Before entering academia, Chellie held senior executive roles in Aotearoa New Zealand and internationally. That experience continues to inform her interest in what happens when ideas about leadership encounter the realities of organisations, institutions and everyday practice.
Chellie has been a Fulbright Senior Scholar at the Harvard Kennedy School and the University of Arizona, and Leader-in-Residence at the Atlantic Institute at Oxford. Her work has been recognised through awards including the Dame Mira Szászy Māori Alumni Award, a National Māori Academic Excellence Award and a University of Waikato Research Excellence Award.
People and places that shape my work
My work is grounded in whakapapa and in the people who have shaped how I understand service, responsibility and relationship.
My grandmother Wikitoria Atkinson, Whaea Jane Marsden, Pereme Porter and my mother Monica Stockdale have each influenced how I think about humility, generosity, wisdom and care. My father, Tony, opened another window through his love of astronomy, philosophy and the mysteries of the universe.
These influences continue to surface in my work: in questions about where knowledge comes from, how we carry it, who we are responsible to, and what we leave for those who follow.
“I am interested in how we find our bearings when the old maps are no longer enough, and in the knowledge, relationships and responsibilities that help us move well through uncertainty.”
Books and writing
My books and research explore leadership from different vantage points: Indigenous knowledge, navigation, spirituality, catalytic change, relationship and responsibility.
Wayfinding Leadership draws on the wisdom of traditional Polynesian navigation to explore leadership through uncertainty.
The Catalyst’s Way explores how people become catalysts for change through activated hope, discomfort, reflection, collaboration and action.
Indigenous Spiritualities at Work and Authentic Leadership examine other dimensions of how culture, identity, spirituality and lived experience shape leadership and organisational life.
Across these books runs a recurring inquiry: how might we lead and act when certainty is unavailable, when inherited systems no longer serve us, and when different ways of knowing need to be brought into relationship?
My writing moves between scholarship, story, Indigenous knowledge and practice, with a particular interest in what becomes possible when we attend more closely to place, relationship and responsibility.