New Water Policy and Practice Issue 4, Number 1, Fall 2017 | Page 27

Growing as a Water Leader: Beware of Six Traps
the planet. In order to address these challenges we need more people who have the
capacity to exercise influence and drive change in different leadership roles.
Building the leadership capacity of emerging leaders is underway in many
parts of the world (Lincklaen Arriëns & Wehn de Montalvo 2013), but we have
a limited knowledge base of some of the leadership development strategies that
are most relevant to people playing different leadership roles in the water sec-
tor (Taylor, Lincklaen Arriëns & Laing 2015). This paper aims to strengthen this
knowledge base by highlighting six common leadership development traps that
emerging water leaders commonly fall into, and specific interventions that can
be used to help them avoid or escape these traps so they can grow as influential
change agents.
The six trap framework shown in Figure 1 and the guidance provided in the
body of this paper represents a resource that can be used by emerging water lead-
ers themselves as a self-leadership instrument. It can be used to prompt reflection,
build self-awareness, and identify specific leadership development strategies to
apply. It can also be used by those people who wish to enable emerging water lead-
ers, such as supervisors, coaches, and mentors. For these people, the information
provided in this paper can help to identify emerging leaders who may be at risk
of falling into these traps, and to identify