Mairi McKinnon

COMMUNITY BASED RESEARCH AWARD MARCH 2021

This prize is awarded annually to the best community-engaged research project presented at Student Research Day.

Leading with Two Eyes: Leadership Failures and Possibilities in the Management of a Pulp Mill’s Wicked Problem

Background: My research focuses on the case study of Northern Pulp, a pulp and paper mill located in Pictou, County Nova Scotia. Over Northern Pulp’s 53 years of operation, it was the subject of controversy in the region because it created significant employment opportunities while, at the same time, causing pollution and negative health impacts on the surrounding population. A significant problem associated with the mill was its release of effluent into Boat Harbour, which was previously enjoyed for livelihood and recreational purposes by the community of Pictou Landing First Nation. In 2014, an effluent leak initiated a blockade by the people of Pictou Landing First Nation, which was only dismantled once the provincial government promised to create the Boat Harbour Act, a piece of legislation that would prevent Northern Pulp from using Boat Harbour past the date of January 31, 2020. Although this legislation was long-awaited by the people of Pictou Landing First Nation, the situation created a wicked problem for Northern Pulp. My goal is to tell a story about leadership in the context of a wicked business problem while also offering some plausible ideas about “what could have been.”

Methods: I conducted a qualitative content analysis of 182 public documents related to Northern Pulp’s leadership approach that were published during the time period in which the Boat Harbour Act was active. After gathering these documents, I then imported them all into a coding software called NVivo where I carried out a thematic analysis of the documents using the process of inductive coding.

Findings: From the process of inductive coding, a total of 18 codes emerged to describe Northern Pulp’s leadership, all of which suggested that Northern Pulp did not employ the type of collaborative leadership that was suggested in the literature as being necessary in the context of a wicked problem.

Conclusions: My research concluded that Northern Pulp failed to employ the type of collaborative leadership that is deemed necessary to tame a wicked problem. I suggest that if Northern Pulp had employed the Mi'kmaw concept of Two-Eyed Seeing to guide its leadership, Northern Pulp conceivably could have tamed its wicked problem and simultaneously engaged in a long overdue process of reconciliation with the people of Pictou Landing First Nation.