Wayfinding Leadership is based on the art of traditional Polynesian navigation with the techniques transforming leaders and organisations by using new practices, such as mindfulness and awareness of environment.

Dr Chellie Spiller is the lead facilitator on Wayfinding Leadership programmes in Aotearoa and we were privileged to have some of her graduates and team members share their knowledge at the ACE Conference.

Wayfinding Leadership focuses on the premise that our conventional approach to business and developing leaders is often insufficient for building the kinds of organisations we need today where “leaders need to deal with complex organisational dynamics, respond to unpredictable and chaotic challenges, and create meaning and purpose amid uncertainty”.

The name Wayfinder reflects the voyage of discovery and the bravery that traditional Pacific Nation voyagers exhibited on their journeys. Like today’s business and community leaders, they led the way to new worlds. 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”.

We were fortunate to have Caroline Taripo-Keith, Russell Su’a, Donna Southworth and Susie Talimalo-Ikihele sharing their voyage of Wayfinding leadership with us. Memorable takeaways included the need to step into your rangatira space and to call the island to you. This reflects the Pacific Nation tradition of calling a group together as a collective to share resources and uplift as one. Finally, the encouragement to embrace the unknown, with the true gift of wayfinding not being our arrival at our destination but instead being who we become along the way on our journey.