4: Responsible, Relational, and Intentional: A Re-Imagined Construct of Corporate-Commons Leadership

Aboriginal ontology believes in the interconnectedness of everything on earth – every rock, tree, waterfall, grain of sand, animal, and human are interconnected stakeholders. From its inception, therefore, every idea considered and action resulting are made with the planet and all its stakeholders in mind, inclusive of impact on their lives in the present and in the future – in other words, the ontology is a model for what matters.

This chapter explores leadership in a new light and supports a model for what matters, an intentional model that is premised on the merger of attitudes toward beliefs, desires, and agency and value placed on those elements that matter such as truth, beauty, and purpose (Turner, 2017). The principle of causality explains the sense of agency, for example, which can generally be considered the driving force as well as rationale behind corporate strategies as they seek to increase profit and shareholder value. The elements that matter, based on intentionality, can be categorized as those that provide the impetus behind the initiatives of the commons, the self-organized groups who work to protect what they believe to be commonly shared natural resources and the right of access for all.