Episode 31: How everlasting flow and limitlessness are profound guides to leadership, with Dr Michelle Evans

Leadership Amplified by Dr Karen Morley

Dr Michelle Evans is the Director of Dilin Duwa Centre for Indigenous Business Leadership at The University of Melbourne. Dilin Duwa runs programs, research projects and partnerships that strengthen indigenous focused business and leadership, and has just celebrated its 10th anniversary 🙌. Dilin Duwa means everlasting flow in the Woi Wurrung language. “Guided by the ancient flows of Country and the responsibility to our communities the 'dilin duwa' of our ancestors, culture and entrepreneurial spirit, collectively works towards an economically powerful Indigenous Australia.” Dilin Duwa features as an important part of Michelle’s career. I was fascinated to hear Michelle reflect on her early clarity about wanting to take leadership roles. She ‘knew what needed to be done’, and sought to enrol others in that, even when at school, then later at university and that continued into her work and over her career. While in her childhood there were few tangible resources, her imagination was lifted as she sought to make something from nothing. Her perspectives were shaped by her university studies in communications and media, and her work in community theatre and radio. Her leadership of the Wiiln Centre for Indigenous Arts saw her focus evolve to growing a pipeline of indigenous talent. She describes her own leadership approach as tempering her ambition in concert with the views of the group: sometimes she needs to get out ahead of the group to draw them forward toward the vision, and other times, to let them go out ahead. We touch on what non-indigenous leaders can learn from indigenous leaders – and it struck me how much there is to learn from this exchange that would help to deal with the big challenges we face: 📌 place is critical – the place you are in provides context for your leadership work and interconnects with what is possible 📌 time is limitless – holding the past, present and future with that sense of everlasting flow – this is a profoundly different position from which to view your actions 📌 successfully boundary-spanning increases adaptability and the ability to think in different ways These concepts place leadership in a much bigger frame, providing an opportunity for non-indigenous leaders to find greater meaning and purpose in the practice and value of the leadership work you do. For Michelle, it’s important to critically examine who you are and how you are operating – that reflexivity is fundamental to good leading.