SPEAKING OUT
www.ca-nv-awwa.org 41
“Expanding the scope of the problem is key.”
and chemistry” interact. Good lessons
for any team, especially one looking to
accomplish the impossible.
You don’t have to be born with some
special genetic code to be a great leader.
In Bankable Leadership, organizational
psychologist Dr. Tasha Eurich shares this
encouraging fact: researchers believe that
leadership is largely learned. One study
showed that 70 percent of the variability
in leadership effectiveness is the result
of experience. Dr. Eurich also posits that
most leaders fall on a spectrum between
the “cool parent,” who is liked but
doesn’t get much done, to the “tyrant”
who gets short-term results but leaves a
trail of bodies in his wake.
Collaborative leaders fall somewhere
in the middle of that spectrum. A
Midwest utility director demonstrated
collaborative leadership by stepping
outside the traditional bounds of his
utility’s mission and fashioning a regional
economic development framework to
support a much-needed rate increase
and creating a path to affordability for
his most vulnerable customers. Another
mentor of mine, the CEO of a large water
technology company, balanced strong
business acumen and a focus on results
with compassionate leadership that
fostered a loyal workforce and helped
his company grow and prosper.
We are currently experiencing a crisis
of public confidence in drinking water in
the U.S. I’ve spent 30 years working on
stakeholder involvement and strategic
communications with water utilities,
and this breaks my heart. Despite our
best efforts to be more proactive and
communicate with the public more, to
shed the old “silent service” approach,
in a recent Gallup poll, 63 percent of
respondents said they worried “a great
deal” about pollution of drinking water,
the highest level recorded in Gallup’s
annual environmental poll since
2001. Recent high-profile and abrupt
departures of water utility managers
around the country underscore that
the public can tolerate failures of
infrastructure and technology but will
not failures of communication.
The Value of Water campaign is
working to educate and inspire the
nation about how water is essential to
our economy and way of life and why
water needs more investment at every
level. Spearheaded by top water industry
leaders, the campaign is building public
and political will for investment in
America’s water infrastructure. To find
out more and get involved, see www.
thevalueofwater.org.
Even with public support, it will
take collaborative leadership to make
this happen. Expanding the scope of
the problem (and therefore the reach
of the solution) by being inclusive is
particularly suited for water industry
leaders, given the complex challenges
we face, the many stakeholders who are
impacted by our work, the high stakes
if we fail, and our sacred duty of public
service. S
