Na’aatah
Na’aatah is the practice of listening one another into being.
Through deep attention, we create safety, trust,
and the quiet space where healing and understanding begin. This space gathers the ongoing work we continue together in our teams, communities, and systems.
Partnership
The Atleo Centre for Compassionate Leadership works in partnership with the Rural Coordination Centre of BC (RCCbc) under a memorandum of understanding. This partnership reflects a shared commitment to relationship-based work, reconciliation, safety, and supporting leadership in ways that honour Indigenous knowledge and practice.
The partnership is grounded in:
cultural humility
collaborative leadership
psychologically safer workplaces
improving patient and provider experience
strengthening rural care
supporting system transformation through relationship
RCCbc provides support and space. Heather and Shawn lead the work.
RCCbc is funded primarily by the Joint Standing Committee on Rural Issues, serving all rural, remote and Indigenous communities in British Columbia covered by the Rural Practice Subsidiary Agreement.
The Ya’ak-stalth Compassionate Leadership Gathering, held on October 24-25, 2024, in Brackendale, 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 RCCbc, the gathering was envisioned as a Tleetsu, a feast and working session rooted in information sharing, collective action and shared purpose.
Tleetsu - The Ya’ak-stalth Compassionate Leadership Gathering
Meet Team Atleo
Ah-up-wa-eek (Shawn Atleo) and Ya’ak-chamat-axa (Heather Atleo) are full partners in life and work and co-founders of the Atleo Centre for Compassionate Leadership. This co-leadership approach is a direct expression in the practice of co-creation, indigenous traditional governance systems, and gender equ(al)ity
Shawn has been a seated Hereditary Chief of the Ahousaht First Nation for more than 30 years. Heather Marie is of mixed ancestry, including Blackfoot.
Together, they weave teachings and experiences of governance, leadership, conflict repair, and relationality to support and encourage how people can consider being with one another to fully understand complex problems, even and especially when they may not agree. This relational approach can help influence, with genuineness and authenticity, how people can be together in a good way, to share, listen, and work together, starting with connection before content.
They offer through the Atleo Centre, relationship-based executive and professional leadership coaching and training, strategic thought leadership, and facilitation support. This work is founded on indigenous knowledge, systems, philosophy and worldview as well as mainstream advancements including trauma-informed practice, human development, neuroscience, non-violent communication, and relational systems learning.
The Atleo Centre values and strives to uphold safety and well-being so that we can effectively practise connection, clarity, and compassion through teachings held with care, strengthening psychological, cultural, and emotional safety in teams and communities. This then also heightens efficiencies, reduces burnout, increases workplace well-being and healing, and supports successful planning and conflict resolution, repair and healing at all levels. It also increases healthy communication and constructive problem solving while reducing harmful conflicts.
Heather is an experienced leader who has worked to pursue health transformation for BC First Nations, as part of an executive leadership team that supported the establishment of the First Nations Health Council in 2007, and the successful transfer of health services from Health Canada’s First Nations and Inuit Health Branch to the new, autonomous First Nations Health Authority. Shawn served as Regional Chief of British Columbia from 2004-2009, elected by 203 Nations in BC, and the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations from 2009 to 2014, elected by 663 Nations in Canada. During that time Shawn signed the 2005 Transformative Change Accord, the 2007 Tripartite First Nations Health Plan, and the 2011 BC Tripartite Framework Agreement on Frist Nations Health Governance. Between 2020-2025, together Heather and Shawn co-chaired the collective achievement of the Teztan Biny Agreement between the Tŝilhqot'in Nation, Taseko Mines Limited, and the Province of British Columbia that concluded in June 2025.
In recent years, their work has had a strong focus on rural health teams and health system leaders in British Columbia, and it also extends into other settings, including education, business, and governance.
Based in Squamish, British Columbia, they are parents to five beautiful children still at home.
Bring this work
to your team.
If you are interested in working with the Atleo Centre for Compassionate Leadership, we welcome you connecting in.