New Water Policy and Practice Issue 4, Number 1, Fall 2017 | Page 16

New Water Policy & Practice Journal
Figure 1. Six leadership-related traps that developing water leaders commonly fall into
The chaotic leader The timid leader
Description: Struggles with self-leader-
ship, especially time management. Has dif-
ficulty clarifying their “big picture” priori-
ties, managing their career and profession-
al development, distinguishing between
urgent and important tasks, using day to
day time management tools, delegating,
saying no, etc. Their tendency to be highly
reactive and non-strategic adversely affects
their ability to effectively lead teams. Description: Struggles with self-confi-
dence. More commonly female than male.
May have had a poor supervisor who has
damaged their confidence. May also work
in an organization that does not support
their development or offer positive role
models. They hold back from taking op-
portunities to grow as a leader (e.g. volun-
teering to take on a more senior role or ask-
ing a senior leader to mentor them). They
may also find it difficult to adopt a “leader
identity”.
The stunted leader The non-strategic leader
Description: These leaders are missing one
or more important ingredients that hold
back their development as a leader. “Miss-
ing ingredients” usually relate to: their
work role/environment (e.g. there is a lack
of opportunities to engage in leadership);
a lack of self-awareness; a lack of work
colleagues who they trust; a propensity to
avoid getting feedback from colleagues and
responding positively; a non-supportive su-
pervisor; a tendency to dwell on problems
rather than solutions; and/or a propensity
to avoid taking personal responsibility for
the leadership development process. Description: Struggles to be forward think-
ing, see the ‘big picture”, and strategically
plan for the future. A common scenario is
a team leader who is very good at address-
ing the day-to-day issues within their team
at a task and relationship level, but is poor
at thinking about what the team will need
in the longer term and working outside of
their team. They have difficulty seeing the
“big picture” and engaging in scanning be-
haviors, strategic social networking, strate-
gic thinking and strategic planning.
The individualistic leader The directive leader
Description: Struggles to bring people with
them on leadership initiatives. They tend
to be comfortable in the champion leader-
ship role, where they are good at initiating
change but often move too quickly for their
colleagues/stakeholders, fail to build a co-
alition of support, fail to build a generally
shared vision, take excessive risks, and can
leave the initiative too early. They also have
a tendency to avoid and/or underperform
in the team leadership role. Description: Struggles to enable others to
solve problems. They have a tendency to tell
(direct) people how to address problems.
They usually come from a highly technical
background, may be seen as a “technical
guru”, and have developed a problem-solv-
ing style which has served them well when
working as an individual to address tech-
nical challenges. This style inhibits the
growth of people in their teams, and is in-
effective at addressing complex challenges
(also known as wicked problems or adap-
tive challenges).
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