Revelation of Typology in Historical Native American Leadership: Implications for Contemporary Praxes

Abstract

The various forms of damage, to include genocide, that historic colonialism has instituted upon Native American people is no longer a secret. Native Americans have suffered through many negative socio-psychological effects through this process. Despite their historical maltreatment, Native Americans have proven resilient. The authors hypothesized that specific traits have been prominent in the histories of Native American leaders although they mostly came from distinct tribal systems. What does this type of leadership look like? To engage the hypothesis we used Boolean operator search functions and computer-aided random selection for data with which to analyze leadership behavior of four Indigenous leaders. These leaders were drawn from a historic pool of fifty, from four separate databases. Through surveying the literature it was necessary to conduct four biographical case studies of these leaders. We detailed the various leadership traits exhibited by these randomly selected Native American leaders and were able to synthesize and classify the results as either innate or cognate characteristics. While these leaders were separated by time, tribe, and vast geographical distance —in an area that became the United States — their traits, when integrated, revealed a thematic framework of Native American leadership — a typology that could inform and guide leaders (and managers) in various contemporary praxes.