Rauhuia | Leadership space: Terenga Huihuinga | Symposia Series continues in October

The next symposium in the series, Mana o te whenua – Maunga, explores local perspectives on leadership and will be held online on Thursday 26 October from 4:00pm to 5:30pm. Register for the event here. 

Hoki atu ki tōu maunga kia purea ai e koe ki ngā hau o Tāwhirimatea.   

Return to your mountain to be cleansed by the winds of Tāwhirimatea.  

This whakataukī is often used to encourage people to reconnect with their ancestral lands or return to their childhood haunts, or to re-energise, re-assure, and to reflect. We are all likely to have maunga that we connect with. For some, this is through whakapapa. For others, we connect with maunga that stand as sentinels in our landscape.   

We may have experience of living in the foothills of the Southern Alps, along the grassy plains, in the shadow of Taupiri, or along the shoreline of Mauao. Whichever mountain comes to mind, we all have our differing perspectives on maunga and how they connect with us and us with them.  

Think about the perspective that you view that maunga from; is it from a shoreline, from a forest edge, from another maunga? Each of us sees the maunga from our own personal viewpoint, from our own perspective. What if that maunga represented our leadership stance?  Would we be solitary or part of a range, impressive, visible, quiet, unassuming, private, or available? Would we guide the way, stand at the back or lead on as markers on the horizon of each new day? 

When we consider how our unique educational context impacts on our leadership, we start to understand the concept of mana whenua, where our own mana and that of our team is directly impacted by the places and spaces we inhabit. How does our workplace provide reassurance? How do we connect with our communities? How do we create spaces that re-energise our learners, our teachers, and in return, energise us as leaders? How do we find time to reflect, to feel the winds of Tāwhirimatea, and space to grow within our settings? 

The symposia will be led by Stacey Morrison and a principal she has collaborated with. Together they will share their connections and how they have utilised the unique strengths of their community and their demonstrated leadership capability. 

For more information on Rauhuia | Leadership space, please visit our Rauhuia  page.