Conference Agenda

You’ve read the management books that tell you a key to your team’s success is empowerment, but what is staff empowerment and how can you implement it? In their research on leadership, Kouzes and Posner identify ‘Enabling Others to Act’ as one of the five practices of exemplary leadership. In this presentation, we will describe what empowerment is, why it matters, and what the benefits are. We will talk about some of the barriers, what happens when something goes wrong, and lay out a guide on how to get started. The presentation will also include other elements of exemplary leadership, such as creating a shared vision that produces a climate for enabling others to act.
We’ll explore enabling your team to act through fostering collaboration, creating a climate of trust, facilitating relationships, strengthening others, enhancing self-determination, developing competence and confidence, and organizing work to build competence and ownership. But what if you do all these things and someone you empower and enable makes a mistake – what do you do then? It’s the moment of truth – reminding ourselves and our team members that this is a journey and that the focus is on learning and long-term improvement in a supportive environment. We will talk about how all of these elements combine to create empowerment that not only delivers greater job satisfaction for you and your team, but they also deliver better business results.

A passionate and consistent workforce is critical to ensuring a “Sound Future for Water” (and the success of other utility and professional industries). Leadership development is an essential component of the success and retention of the water and engineering industry’s workforce. But what else? How do we get there? Engaged employees lead to quality work, collaborative teams, and can result in staff that are eager to stay with their employers, and “at least” within the water or wastewater sector. This presentation will offer insight on the importance of leadership and effective training, what works for actual employees, continual personal and professional growth, career development, and additional topics. This presentation will offer information from two differing, but direct personal primary perspectives: Molly’s insight as a seasoned engineer in the public sector and Kathleen’s experience as a rising professional in the private sector. In addition to their own experiences, they will be conducting a careful survey effort to their colleagues and peers in both the public and private sectors, across gender, diversity, career status, and equity groups, to add to this discussion. We will ask ourselves: What is most important to employee continued growth? How did they develop leadership skills? What factors motivate them to stay? Either at their employer? or in their industry? And even, “What is the biggest challenge in their day-to-day work?” Or, “What do employees feel they need from their work to be successful?” These surveys will be anonymous but collected with meaningful data such as age, career length, gender and race self-identification, and education/experience type. This will help show how these different demographics, personalities, and strengths can be best utilized and fostered in any industry for success. The presentation will provide the audience with insights into what could help lead to the success of the water and wastewater industry's workforce and benefit agencies and employers of all kinds.