New Water Policy and Practice Volume 1, Number 2 - Spring 2015 | Page 24

Understanding Six Water Leadership Roles

authority or resources. Her organisation has recently completed some successful
local pilot projects in partnership with local communities involving sustainable
farming practices, but now needs government support and resources to promote
these practices on a larger scale. The role descriptions described in this paper could
be used as a tool to identify the people within the river basin who are playing
different leadership roles, as a step towards analysing how they are interacting, and
what role she could play to influence river basin management. For example, she
might identify that an influential ‘thought leader’ in a local university has a close
relationship with a ‘trusted adviser’ who frequently briefs local politicians on water
management issues. As part of her strategic social networking activities (Ibarra
and Hunter 2007) she may subsequently decide to strengthen her relationships
with the thought leader and trusted adviser, and provide them with information
on the successful pilot projects as part of a broader strategy to garner government
support.

4.2. Practical implications for leadership development specialists

Leadership development specialists who design and deliver leadership
programmes and short courses, or coach developing leaders could also use the role
descriptions. For example, when designing a new water leadership programme, the
role descriptions could be used as a framework to explore the following questions:
which roles