An Indigenous Perspective on Women Leadership: An Example for Higher Education

Fielding Graduate University, founded in 1974, offers distributed graduate education and research programsin three social science areas: psychology, human and organizational development, and educationalleadership. All three schools affirm a commitment to social change and social justice. The EducationalLeadership and Change (ELC) doctoral program was developed in 1996 as a way to influence educationalreform and to make doctoral education accessible to working adults, especially those from underservedcommunities. During its development, the program struggled and faltered as it tried to establish its identityand work toward its goals. After an abrupt change in leadership, two women emerged to form a co-deanleadership team: Susan Tiara, Ph.D. and Judy Witt, Ph.D. Looking for a model that emphasized relationshipsand a more global outlook, they adopted Total Transformational Management Process (Mink, Esterhuysen,Mink, & Owen, 1993) as the conceptual framework for ELC's governance. Based on action researchprocesses, TTMP utilizes an inclusive model for change that emphasizes the system, "paying specialattention to the human side" (p. 11). TTMP was instrumental in developing ELC's way of simultaneouslyworking at the individual, group, and organizational levels and in seeing participatory action research (Park,1992, 1993) as "transformation concomitant with intense learning" (Mink, et al., 1993, p. 11). Consideringthe complexity of Fielding's dispersed learning environment, such a transformational priority in leadership,communication, and decision-making became a critical priority for both Fielding and EL