Based on Chellie’s latest book ‘The Catalyst’s Way’, we explore how to:

• Ignite your flame of Activated Hope

• Summons the Courage to Explore the Chamber of Dis-comfort

• Experience more Dis-Covery: Leading from Authenticity

As a 2022 Leader-in-Residence at the Atlantic Institute, Oxford University, Chellie authored ‘The Catalyst’s Way’ and her related leadership development services based on this to ignite, support and transform catalytic efforts worldwide - to empower catalyst changemakers like you to navigate your unique pathway. As a Professor of Leadership and a Fellow of the International Leadership Association, Chellie Spiller is a trusted authority in the art and science of leadership development. She can show catalyst leaders and businesses how to create more sustainable wealth and wellbeing.

Wayfinders go beyond the known, and journey on voyages of discovery to new horizons. Central to the wayfinding approach is seeing what is really going on - discerning the detail and seeing the whole. The wayfinder has a deep understanding of themselves, their crew, their waka and the environment. Drawing upon ancient wisdom, modern wayfinders hold insights that can make a big difference for leaders, their teams and organisations and for the future of society – for us all individually and collectively. That’s why we are passionate about studying and sharing their wisdom. Wayfinding Leadership: Groundbreaking Wisdom for Developing Leaders is designed as a developmental leadership journey.

We take you on a journey – not just about wayfinding leadership, but most importantly into wayfinding leadership. This book has practical steps and questions to help you apply wayfinding wisdom. Wayfinding leadership is for all of us who want to take up the wayfinding leadership challenge and achieve our full potential. We draw upon and explain wayfinding philosophy and ground this in real world experience.

We guide you on a wayfinding leadership development journey that requires stepping into the unknown, developing sharper powers of observation, being more comfortable with uncertainty and finding new and better ways to tackle situations. Rather than rely on rational thinking, wayfinder leaders use the broader sets of intelligence with which they are endowed. A wayfinder leader is motivated by curiosity and is steeped in wonder. Wayfinder leaders look to develop everyone’s potential and have an abiding belief that ‘we are in the waka together’.

A highly interactive and academically robust course that has been designed to give leaders tools to strengthen organisational transformation towards greater diversity, inclusion and belonging. As systems scientist Peter Senge has said, it is not organisations who change but individuals, and through a change challenge in the context of diversity, inclusion and belonging you’ll have first-hand experience of a personal change process which can also be applied in teams. The process also provides tools to help leaders coach others.

Participants who successfully complete the sessions should be able to:

Analyse, apply and reflect on a range of leadership skills that aid understanding and resolving of complex leadership issues in the context of diversity, inclusion and belonging

Discern between low and high context cultures

Reflect on personal responses to diversity, inclusion and belonging

Explore authentic leadership, relational and Māori leadership

Distinguish between adaptive and technical change, and acquire the tools to lead self and others through the “Immunity to Change” process

Chellie’s university research and teaching includes a specialisation in ‘diversity and inclusion’. She has also provided a range of leadership services on this subject for businesses.

Chellie draws upon her Ngāti Kahungunu and Pākehā lineage, experience at 17 of living for a year in Thailand as an AFS (America Field Service) Scholarship student living with a Thai family and attending Thai school, and a business career that included leading some of the first cultural tours to North Korea.

As a Fulbright Senior Scholar at the Harvard University, she worked closely with Harvard Professors and other scholars in the Harvard Native American Economic Development Project and at the University of Arizona. She continues to participate in and support this project. She has been a guest speaker for this initiative.
Chellie is a Fellow of the Dilin Duwa Centre for Indigenous Business Leadership – an initiative committed to the pursuit of equity for First Nations people in the economic life of Australia. ‘Dilin Duwa’ means everlasting flow.

Chellie is currently leading a transdisciplinary team of Māori economy researchers exploring Māori economies of wellbeing, with a strong whānau focus. This research is part of Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga, New Zealand's Māori Centre of Research Excellence (CoRE).

The book, 'Practical Wisdom, Leadership and Culture: Indigenous, Asian and Middle-Eastern Perspectives', that Chellie co-edited with Ali Intezari and Shih-Ying Yang features stories from contributors from the world’s wisdom traditions that are illuminating and inspiring.

An introductory session on how Māori culture and values can help organisations understand, and be motivated to create, a culture that is genuinely open and embracing of diversity and inclusion. In this session Chellie invites organisations to consider not just ‘adding Māori to the Multi-cultural Mix” as a kind of clip on or check box – but to look at integrating Māori values in a meaningful way. The wisdom contained in Māori values, developed over the aeons in relationship to the world around us help us create relational trust and wellbeing. This is a world of “I belong therefore I am” in which creating a culture of belonging is at the heart of ‘diversity and inclusion.’

The Immunity-to-Change™ approach developed by Harvard’s Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey shows how our individual habits and mindsets— along with the collective norms and beliefs in our organizations—combine to create an overwhelming immunity to change. Their approach amounts to nothing less than a radical recasting, conceptually and practically, of the work of improving performance.

Those frustrated or disappointed with their current change efforts who want guidance in knowing what to do to turn things around will find The Immunity-to-Change™ approach very practical. With "how to" advice, hands-on diagnostics and compelling case studies, The Immunity-to-Change™ approach delivers the tools you need to overcome the forces of inertia and transform your life and your work.

A key question Rodger has researched is how can leadership development be truly effective? Rodger resonated with the view of Harvard Professor Robert Kegan who maintains that ‘existing leadership development places insufficient emphasis on development’. ‘The Immunity-to-Change™’ approach developed by Kegan and his Harvard colleague Lisa Lahey is a powerful tool for transformation. Rodger trained with Kegan and Lahey in Boston and undertook a comprehensive supervision process with them to become a Certified Immunity-to-Change™ Coach and Facilitator. Chellie has also studied and taught this approach.

Read more in our blog 'Overturning Immunity to Change'.

Learn more from Minds at Work about the Immunity to Change method of transformation.

Over the years, Chellie has had the privilege of working with a wide range of organisations across sectors including education, government, business, health, and Indigenous development—both in Aotearoa New Zealand and internationally. These collaborations reflect her commitment to transformational leadership, values-based practice, and cross-cultural insight. The following is a selection of the organisations she has journeyed with:

Education & Academia

• University of Auckland

• University of Otago

• University of Waikato

• St Mary’s College of California

• Ross School New York, USA

• Thunderbird University, USA

• Drucker School of Management, USA

• University of Arizona

• University of Oregon, USA

• Harvard University, USA

• Te Kura Pounamu

• Kidsfirst

• Playcentre NZ

• Asia Pacific Deans of Business Schools

• NZ Primary School Association

Global & International Leadership

• Atlantic Fellows for Social Equity

• Atlantic Institute (Oxford University)

• Asia Development Bank

• Google International Leadership Development

• Kaiser Permanente Unions (USA)

Government & Public Sector

• Ministry of Education

• Ministry of Justice

• Te Puni Kōkiri

• Department of Corrections

• Department of Conservation

• Education Review Office

• Capital & Coast DHB

• Waitematā DHB

• Bay of Plenty Regional Council

• District Court Judges

• Māori Land Court

Health & Social Services

• Auckland City Mission

• Hāpai te Hauora

• Te Rau Matatini

• VisionWest Community Trust

• Purapura Whetu Trust

• ANZGOG (Australia New Zealand Gynaecological Oncology Group)

Business & Professional Services

• KPMG

• BDO Māori Governance Series

• Genesis

• SPARK

• Sky City

• Caci Clinic

• NZ China Business Network

Māori & Indigenous Organisations

• Tainui Board

• Taiwhenua Hawke’s Bay

• National Māori Accountants Network

• Hiakai

Leadership & Professional Networks

• Women in Leadership

• Global Women

• Springboard Trust

• Business & Professional Women Asia-Pacific

• Not-for-Profit NZ

Justice & Legal

• District Court Judges

• Māori Land Court

• Asia-Pacific Coroners Pacific

Sport

• Northern Mystics