Compassionate Leadership

The Ya’ak-stalth Compassionate Leadership Gathering

The Ya’ak-stalth Compassionate Leadership Gathering, held on October 24-25, 2024, at Sunwolf in Squamish, BC, was a significant moment of reflection, accountability, and collective visioning. Co-hosted by Ah-up-wa-eek and Ya’ak-chamat-axa (Shawn and Heather Atleo) of the Atleo Centre for Compassionate Leadership and Thalkna (Dr. Ray Markham) and Sasanaxa (Leslie Carty) of the Rural Coordination Centre of British Columbia, the Tleetsu (gathering) was deeply rooted in teachings and practices of Team Atleo and those who guided them, and created opportunities for reflection, relationship-building, and collective learning. It provided a responsive space for health leaders to share stories, insights, and tangible examples while addressing specific challenges and opportunities within the systems they care for and support.   

This was beyond a community-building and strategic thinking event; the Tleetsu served as a methodological framework for evaluation—centering witnessing, storytelling, and shared accountability as actionable forms of validation and reporting. In this space, ceremony becomes a practice of knowledge exchange, where the integral components of success are captured through relational and cultural dimensions.   

Over 110 participants—healthcare administrators, family physicians and specialists, ministry officials, health authority leaders and patient advocates—came together to share insights, assess the impact of the Compassionate Leadership program, and co-develop a path forward for embedding these principles within the healthcare system.

Re-imagining Interior Health Clinical Networks

Past cohort participants are taking the Compassionate Leadership framework and the learnings they have taken from the introductory session with Team Atleo to support a shift in culture within their programs and organizations. After attending a cohort with Team Atleo, Drs. Aron Zuidhof, Paul Carey, and Monique Walsh invited them to be on the Advisory Committee for the Re-imagining Interior Health (IH) Clinical Networks project.

The IH team shared how Compassionate Leadership has informed a different way of hosting focus groups, including greetings and gratitude and in seeking feedback from participants. Universally, it was well received and their perception was that it created safer spaces. This shift in process and culture has created space for open dialogue, leading to richer, more meaningful feedback from participants. “We saw and stood in awe at the kinds of responses we got from participants in the focus groups. The focus groups were planned to be one and a half hours in length, but we had to shut them down at the end of the time allotted because people just wanted to talk and talk. It lends evidence to how this can work in a healthcare/systems setting.”

The IH team shared how they were intentional and respectful of the data gathered to distill it methodologically into themes from which were coded and emerged with the initial guiding principles for the project, emphasizing co-development and structural compassion, especially in engaging frontline workers, minority groups, and Indigenous communities.

The IH team highlighted that the project’s strength lies in its intentional, collaborative process. The guiding principles were shaped by the voices of their colleagues, and the next phase focuses on co-creating actionable recommendations. This approach embodies the shift from “power over” to “power with,” fostering shared ownership and collective progress in healthcare transformation.

Supporting Growth of the Atleo Centre for Compassionate Leadership

There is significant interest in the introductory compassionate leadership session, as well as next layer work supported through a compassionate leadership framework.

To support ongoing sustainability of this work, with a vision for spread, Hupiits-stulth, starting the journey with the helpers has begun. Four individuals have started walking alongside Ah-up-wa-eek (Chief Shawn Atleo) and Ya’ak’chamat’axa (Heather Atleo) to explore becoming “Helpers” of the Atleo Centre for Compassionate Leadership.