Week 3: LFADS - Why Good Leaders Make You Feel Safe: Respect, Reciprocity, & Relationality

          Over the last several days I have been re-reading Research is Ceremony: Indigenous Research Methods by Shawn Wilson (Opaskwayak Cree).  This is a fundamental text for Indigenous (and non-Indigenous) scholars who wish to utilize Indigenous research methods and paradigms for their scholarly work.  I first read this book during my MA program in 2016 but having grown quite a bit – both personally and academically – since then, I decided that I should revisit Wilson's book.  I removed all of the original tabs (I didn’t highlight back then) I had in the book to ensure that I was approaching the reading with a fresh lens.

          While watching Why Good Leaders Make You Feel Safe, I couldn't help but let my mind wonder to Wilson's book/research, and how Simon Sinek’s talk was demonstrating that good leaders possess and put into action the 3 R’s: respect, reciprocity, and relationality (Wilson, 2008, p. 58).  In Research is Ceremony, Wilson states that "if Indigenous ways of knowing have to be narrowed down through one particular lens... then surely that lens would be relationality. All things are related and therefore relevant" (Wilson, 2008, p. 58).  As Indigenous people all things are connected.  We are connected to the land, to our four-legged relatives, and to the community (immediate and extended).  A phrase in Indian Country often utilizes to explain these connections is all my relations.  All that we do in life impacts the lives of these connections, and we must ensure that we are making wise decisions in order to retain our relations.

          Wilson expands the core Indigenous concept of relationality further by connecting it to what Cora Weber-Pillwax (Metis) calls the “three R’s: Respect, Reciprocity, and Relationality” (Wilson, 2008, p. 58).  The 3 R’s are eloquently defined by, Evelyn Steinhauer (Saddle Lake Cree Nation).  Steinhauer explains that:

Respect is more than just saying please and thank you, and reciprocity is more than giving a gift. According to Cree Elders, showing respect or kihceyihtowin is a basic law of life.  Respect regulates how we treat Mother Earth, the plants, the animals, and out brothers and sisters of all races [i.e. relationality] ... Respect means you listen intently to others' ideas, that you do no insist that your idea prevails.  By listening intently, you show honor, consider the well-being of others, and treat others with kindness and courtesy [i.e. reciprocity] (Wilson, 2008, p. 58).

          Good leaders live the 3 R’s.  They treat their followers with respect by embracing them for their strengths and weaknesses and their similarities and differences.  They display reciprocity through helping a person grow professionally and personally, and by “doing for them what they would have done for me” (Sinek, 2014).  Finally, good leaders demonstrate relationality by creating an environment where followers feel a sense of belonging and connection.  The 3 R’s are not just essential for good leaders, they are essential traits for being good researchers, and everyone should implement them into their research philosophy.