Over the past two years teaching in the Department of Management at Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka, my thinking has evolved in ways that have both surprised and enriched me. When I began, I brought with me a strong grounding in Indigenous knowledge systems and deep experience in community-based practice. My intention was clear: to contribute a critical, decolonising lens to business education and to foreground collective wellbeing, reciprocity, and manaakitanga. Those priorities remain steadfast, but the ways I understand and enact them have deepened. My critical approach has matured from one of challenge to one of engagement, seeking transformation through connection, dialogue, and shared learning.
The most significant influence on this shift has been the people I work alongside. My colleagues have expanded my perspective, offering fresh ways to interpret the relationships between business, society, and sustainability. Through cross-disciplinary conversations, I have discovered opportunities to weave diverse epistemologies together rather than hold them in tension. Where I once viewed Western business frameworks primarily through critique, I now recognise the potential within them for positive change, through collaboration, innovation, and values-based leadership. These relationships remind me that the pursuit of change need not be adversarial; it can be collective, relational, and profoundly human.
Equally transformative has been my engagement with students. Continuing to develop my teaching practice (a tuakana/teina framework), where the roles of teacher (tuakana) and learner (teina) shift fluidly, has reinforced that education is inherently reciprocal. While I may lead the teaching, I am continually learning from the insights, experiences, and aspirations of my students. They challenge me to clarify my thinking, to listen more deeply, and to approach business education through lenses relevant to their rapidly evolving contexts. Their curiosity and commitment have transformed my own learning journey, reaffirming my long-held belief that teaching should never be one-directional act of transmission but a shared exploration of knowledge.
Through this ongoing exchange, both in and beyond the teaching/learning space, my worldview has expanded. I now understand Western approaches to business not simply as a system to critique but as a living network of economic, social, and environmental relationships that can be reshaped toward more just and sustainable futures. My critical practice has become more integrative: still rigorous and analytical, but more empathetic and grounded in whanaungatanga.
As I reflect on these two years, I am struck by how deeply my intellectual and personal growth has been shaped by connection, with colleagues, students, and the communities that give meaning to our work. The tuakana/teina approach continues to remind me that leadership and learning are inseparable, and that the best education happens when we allow ourselves to be both teacher and student, and above all things to bring our authenticity to the teaching space.
Looking ahead, I am committed to continuing this journey of shared learning. The challenge for all of us, is to keep growing the spaces where knowledge systems meet, where critique becomes collaboration, and where we learn not just about each other, but from each other. In those spaces of connection, true transformation takes root.
Nga mihi
Mawera