Indigenous ways of developing leadership in education: creating a rights-based organizational consciousness

Despite crucial initiatives aimed at increasing the number of Indigenous people in higher education, there continues to be an underrepresentation of Indigenous leaders in universities. This chapter looked at the fundamental aspects and issues surrounding Indigenous leadership and proposed a Model for capacity building for senior leadership roles. This Model responds to the Whole of University framework and seeks to raise awareness of non-Indigenous individual and institutional biases towards Indigenous Australians. Based on organisational change principles, the Model presents a six-module training that leads non-Indigenous senior executive members to make well-informed decisions that engage Indigenous education experts in Indigenous leadership development. The Model and the fundamental principles discussed in this chapter can be applied to similar institutional contexts that want to move from a deficit approach to Indigenous leadership towards a rights-based approach.