A Cultural Change for Leadership Identities: Could Aboriginal Artists Reveal a Different Approach?

Abstract

Leadership in Australia is in crisis, as evidenced by the catastrophic bushfire season during the summer of 2019-2020. It is widely accepted that the intensity of these fires is driven by the changes in climate predicted some twelve years ago (Garnaut, 2008). Yet despite knowledge of this impending disaster, attempts to mitigate the impact of climate change with developments in alternative economic and energy models have been stymied by political leaders. The resulting environmental damage suggests that the way in which we identify and promote our leaders has failed the ultimate challenge of our age. In the search for hope and a way forward, alternative leadership models capable of implementing positive change are needed. Under these circumstances, it is imperative to seek models that harmonise culture and the environment. Such innovative models of leadership characteristics and identities have been identified in the creative disciplines, particularly within Indigenous societies. As an art critic and writer over thirty years, my research has noted the leadership roles and respect that Australian Aboriginal artists frequently hold within their communities. I propose a starting point for potential disruption and insights to alternative leadership approaches. It is through the examination and reflection of ways in which narrative and culture connects communities to create hope through identifying positive futures and “relatedness” that impactful, progressive, leadership may be realised. Relatedness is required to remedy the failing leadership model in Australia. Indigenous methodologies such as Please Knock before You Enter (Martin, 2009) developed a research paradigm “founded on the principles of cultural respect and cultural safety and embedded in Aboriginal ontology, epistemology and axiology”. In Aboriginal communities, art provides a touchstone to the past and innovation toward the future. This paper examines characteristics that may serve mainstream society from the creative models available, particularly focussing on Aboriginal artists who are leaders in their community and cultural contributors at the same time. While there are conflicts visible between these divergent roles, their connectivity to the narratives of their place and people offer significant points of difference to the way in which we select and promote our current political leaders. There is little discussion of leadership models modelled by Aboriginal arts and culture in existing literature to date. In this paper I acknowledge the novel nature of the material under discussion. However its potential ability to transform the way in which we manage both leadership and crucial environmental decisions at this juncture toward new leadership paradigms is the subject of the explorations below.