www.watercentre.org/leadership

Summary of the Three Water Leadership Roles

Role #1: The project champion water leadership role

Project champions: People who initiate and strongly drive processes of change, as well as new integrated water management projects and policies. They are highly motivated, stand out early in processes of change and excel at exerting influence. They drive projects on a day-to-day level, unlike more senior ‘executive champions’. They often promote innovations, question the status quo, and communicate clear and compelling visions for projects. They also commonly play the ‘project / team leader’ role, and work closely with other leaders to deliver projects (e.g. more senior ‘enabling leaders’). The extent to which a project champion can fulfil this role is often limited by their local context (e.g. available support from senior management, available resources, directions from a client, etc.).

Example: Project champions who work with others to initiate and strongly drive pilot projects that showcase innovative examples of integrated water management.
Role #2: The enabling water leader role

Enabling leaders: People who enable others to find solutions to complex challenges involving integrated water management. They create environments where people (e.g. often less senior people) from across organisational boundaries can interact, collaborate, experiment, take risks and learn together. Senior enabling leaders may also help leaders at the project level by gathering political and executive support for initiatives, providing resources, sharing risks, and fostering supportive organisational cultures. They may also mentor or work in tandem with less senior leaders. They commonly work across organisational boundaries and often link people / projects within an organisation to external people / projects (e.g. linking industry practitioners with researchers). They can be innovative in the way they approach problem solving and help to foster innovations at a technical level. They are often more senior in organisations than ‘project champions’ or ‘team / project leaders’ (e.g. typically at the middle management to executive level). Their seniority often provides them with more freedom to network, collaborate and search for innovative ideas. They are adept at seeing “the bigger picture” and the systemic way in which projects and policies interact both within and outside the water sector. Although enabling leaders often ‘champion’ integrated water management projects, this leadership role is often less visible and more subtle than the ‘project champion’ role.

Example: Enabling leaders who facilitate forums for stakeholders to come together to work on challenging water issues (e.g. ‘communities of practice’ or action learning projects).
Role #3: The team / project leader role

Team / project leaders: People who are formally responsible for delivering outcomes from teams working on integrated water management projects. Their role includes building, managing and monitoring the performance of teams. They also build and communicate shared visions for projects, clarify objectives and roles, and manage conflict. They also manage resources and information, and may engage in coaching and mentoring behaviours. The need for advanced leadership skills increases when the team spans boundaries (e.g. multi-disciplinary teams that span organisational ‘silos’) and the leader needs to rely on his / her personal power to exercise influence rather than position power. This is a relatively common water leadership role that can be undertaken in combination with the ‘project champion’ or ‘enabling leader’ roles. For example, a ‘project champion’ may act as a change agent to initiate a new project, and then become the official ‘project leader’ to deliver it.

Example: Project leaders responsible for preparing ‘integrated water management plans’ which require input from a variety of professionals located in different organisational units.

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