We Are the Leaders, Issue #6- Wilma Mankiller

by BREAKTHRU Team

November 28th, 2025

Dear Leaders,

It’s the week of Thanksgiving — a time when many of us slow down, reflect on gratitude, and lean into the family traditions that ground us. One of ours is visiting museums (somehow we have convinced all 3 kids that museums are fun). Wandering together through history and well told stories has become a kind of ritual, a way of staying curious as a family and connected to the world around us.

Over the years, one museum in particular has always been our favorite: the Field Museum — especially its extraordinary exhibit Native Truths: Our Voices, Our Stories. If you haven’t seen it, it’s well worth the visit. The exhibit is a living conversation about Native history, sovereignty, and resilience. It is very interactive, modern and historical all at the same time. Each time we walk through it, I’m reminded that Indigenous stories are alive, evolving, and foundational to the world we move through today.

So in this week of gratitude and gathering, it felt fitting to honor an Indigenous leader whose life and leadership embody courage, community, and care: Wilma Mankiller.

In the BREAKTHRU framework, she exhibits the Protector Leadership Type: the steady, deep-rooted leader who carries both responsibility and care. Few leaders embodied this more fully than Wilma Mankiller, the first woman to serve as Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation.

The Power of Her Name

Her very name, Mankiller, often drew reactions from people unfamiliar with its history. But in Cherokee tradition, Mankiller is a revered title — once given to a high-ranking protector or warrior responsible for safeguarding the community.

It had nothing to do with violence in the way English speakers might assume. It signified respect, guardianship, and leadership.

Wilma spent her life reclaiming that meaning. Her name carried the story of her ancestors — defenders, caretakers, guardians — and she lived fully into that lineage. In many ways, her leadership was a modern embodiment of the title she inherited: a protector who united her people through courage, care, and community.

This Week’s Reflection: Wilma Mankiller and the Courage to Protect What Is Sacred

Wilma Mankiller’s story begins in rural Oklahoma on Cherokee land, where community wasn’t an idea — it was the structure of daily life. Her family was later uprooted by the federal Indian Relocation Program and moved to San Francisco, a policy that displaced thousands of Indigenous families from their homelands, scattering identity and connection. That experience ignited in Mankiller a deep understanding: leadership begins with belonging, and protection is not just defensive, it is generative.

She became active early in Indigenous activism, deeply influenced by the 1969 9 months occupation of Alcatraz, where she along with Native organizers reclaimed space to demand sovereignty and visibility. That moment awakened her lifelong commitment to community self-determination.

When she returned home to Oklahoma, she didn’t begin her leadership in an office, she began it in a community in crisis. The small Cherokee community of Bell lacked running water. Infrastructure had eroded. Families were struggling. Government support was absent. So Mankiller organized a community-led effort to rebuild a miles-long water system by hand. Neighbors dug trenches, shared meals, and rebuilt trust through collective effort. It wasn’t glamorous. It wasn’t publicized. But it was transformational. (There is a critically acclaimed movie sharing this story: The Cherokee Word for Water.)

This project became the foundation of her entire leadership philosophy as Principal Chief: empower people, restore what has been neglected, and build systems of care that last.

What She Faced as the First Woman Chief

When Wilma Mankiller became Principal Chief in 1985, it was both historic and deeply controversial. Many people celebrated the moment, but many others resisted it. She received hate mail. She faced open skepticism. Some people told her directly that a woman had no place leading the Nation. At one point, her car was even forced off the road — a violent reminder of how threatening her leadership was to those who could not imagine a woman in that role.

And yet, Mankiller understood something essential that her critics did not: before colonization, Cherokee society was matrilineal, and women held significant political and social power. Her leadership was not an aberration — it was a restoration.

She did not rise to leadership by overpowering anyone. She rose by unifying her people through listening, through shared purpose, through insisting that community strength is built from the ground up. In time, even some who once opposed her came to respect her profoundly. By the time she left office, she was regarded as one of the most transformative leaders in Cherokee history.

Her courage was never loud. It was steady, the kind of courage that rebuilds nations one choice, one conversation, one act of care at a time.

During her tenure, the Cherokee Nation experienced measurable healing. Infant mortality declined, housing and healthcare improved, educational opportunities expanded, employment grew, and sovereignty strengthened. These weren’t abstract policy wins. They were the lived experiences of families whose futures had quietly, steadily changed.

Mankiller often said,

“The secret of our strength is that we have survived every attempt to destroy us.”

Her leadership wasn’t about standing above her people. It was about standing with them — and helping them stand taller themselves.

From Reflection to Action

Ask yourself:

Who needs me to stand with them right now — not above them, not for them, but beside them?
What part of my community, team, or family is asking to be repaired — and what small act could I take this week to begin rebuilding it?
How might I make care — not speed, not control — the strategy for the next challenge I face?

Until Next Week

Next week, we’ll explore The Pathfinder’s Way, featuring George Washington Carver — a visionary scientist and educator whose creativity and imagination transformed the American South. His leadership reminds us that some leaders don’t wait for a path to appear — they create one for others to follow.

With gratitude for Wilma Mankiller and all the leaders-

Lindsay Gaskins

Co-Founder and CEO of BREAKTHRU