By Alisha DeCoteau, Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College Human Resource Director
2025-2026 Indigenous Visionaries: Women’s Leadership Program
When people talk about leadership, they often imagine someone at the front of the room who is speaking, directing, and making decisions. But the first leader I ever knew didn’t stand at the front. She stood in her kitchen, gardened and canned, showed up, and cared.
Theresa Helen Martell-Patnaude
My grandmother was the soul of our family. She wasn’t called a leader, but everything about her demonstrated leadership. It was the way she showed up every single time. It was in the way she always went the extra mile. She was always there when someone needed her. She carried people without ever making it look heavy.
She made frybread for funerals, so grieving families didn’t have to worry about paying or cooking for others. She would cook meals during lunch hour, so her grown children could come home and eat during their work breaks. She made sure no one felt alone.
Her leadership looked like care. It looked like the smell of lilacs blooming outside of her home and the fresh-cut bouquets she arranged inside on the table. It looked like the jars of canned goods lining the shelves after a long day of canning. It sounded like the quiet rhythm of work that was done out of love. It felt safe. Being with her felt like home.
As I reflect on what it means to be an emerging Indigenous woman leader, I realize leadership doesn’t always come in the form of titles or positions. Sometimes leadership can look like creating stability, feeding people, holding families together, listening, and even providing guidance. Sometimes leadership looks like making sure others don’t have to carry everything alone. My grandma taught me that leadership is service. It is being present and showing up before anyone asks.
Theresa Helen Martell-Patnaude with her famous frybread.
Today, as Indigenous women step into leadership roles in institutions, organizations, and communities, we often carry forward a similar quiet strength. The work we do as Indigenous women may look different, but the foundation it comes from is the same. We lead by providing, supporting, protecting, and sustaining, just like the women before us. What I am learning about becoming an Indigenous woman leader isn’t about becoming someone new; it’s about honoring the leadership that already exists within us. We learned leadership lessons from the women who made sure we were safe and led in our lives in kitchens, in gardens, from the smell of canning, and from the hands that fed us.
I want to say to young Indigenous women that leadership doesn’t have to look like power and authority. It can look like care, support, commitment, and showing up. It can look like it is making space for others, so they don’t have to struggle alone. The leadership we carry forward often begins at home and within ourselves.
My leadership journey began with lilacs, warm kitchens, and the quiet strength of a grandmother who never asked for recognition but shaped the lives of others around her. That is the kind of leadership I strive to honor as I grow as an Indigenous woman leader.
