During an unprecedented wave of retirements, leadership is a hot issue for water and wastewater utilities. To develop effective leaders to fill the vacuum, management should search for employees who tote crystal balls — figuratively speaking.
“Organizations in general are over-managed and under-led,” says Ben Rosen, a Hanes professor of management at the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina. “They need people who can look to the future and position their organizations so they can be successful.
“Sometimes utilities don’t feel the need to change because they don’t have competition. In some instances, they’re a little more resistant to change and less forward-looking, which makes leadership even more important. Leadership is much more than just managing day-to-day. It requires a big-picture focus. Many managers are so consumed with the present that they don’t look to the future.”
Good leaders also need to be agents of change — people who can spot trends and see how they affect the organization, then develop ways to respond. Those changes could involve new technology, new regulations, security issues, diseases, changing workforce demographics, privatization, and more.
“In difficult times, budgets might tighten up, or maybe demand for water will suddenly increase,” Rosen notes. “Or the way you clean your water may be banned. All these things require the organization to think about how to sustain itself in the future.”
Leaders also need to set high expectations, hold employees accountable, and bring new ideas into organizations.
