People and Leadership
Arup partnered with South West Water’s Wastewater Services Leadership Team to build emotionally intelligent leadership that could withstand high-pressure operational demands and drive lasting behavioural change.
South West Water’s Wastewater Services Leadership Team operates in one of the most demanding environments in the UK water sector. Responsible for maintaining environmental compliance and protecting the natural environment across a complex wastewater network serving millions of customers, the team must make rapid, high‑stakes decisions, often under intense pressure and increasingly extreme weather conditions.
Despite strong technical expertise and individual capability, the leadership team was not functioning effectively as a collective. Siloed working, low confidence and unresolved conflict were undermining collaboration, accountability and decision making. These challenges had consequences beyond the team, contributing to low engagement, inconsistent performance and compliance risks across a wider department of 240 people. South West Water recognised that technical interventions alone would not address these systemic issues and onboarded Arup to support a fundamental shift in leadership behaviour.
Arup designed and implemented a two year, evidence based, emotional intelligence (EI) development programme to transform how the team collaborated under pressure. Grounded in behavioural science and team performance academic research, the programme focused on developing self‑awareness, empathy, emotional regulation and trust, alongside the practical leadership behaviours required to embed change into everyday operations.
Arup combined individual coaching with structured team‑based development, introducing clear behavioural norms and practical tools that could be consistently applied in a live operational context. These included structured check‑ins to build awareness and trust, clearer roles and responsibilities to strengthen accountability, proactive problem‑solving routines, and safe, constructive ways to surface and address difficult conversations. Particular emphasis was placed on improving the quality of team meetings, decision making processes and handover arrangements, ensuring leadership behaviours directly supported operational performance.
Learning was reinforced through facilitated sessions, practical exercises and regular progress reviews with the client. This ensured that behavioural change was sustained over time and embedded into day‑to‑day working practices, rather than remaining a one‑off development intervention. The programme was designed to remain effective during organisational change, with new team members joining partway through the process and being successfully integrated into the established ways of working.
The impact has been transformational. Engagement scores across the wider department increased dramatically, reflecting a step‑change in morale, psychological safety and alignment with organisational goals. The leadership team developed greater confidence, stronger collaboration and improved decision-making capability, enabling them to lead more effectively through operational challenges and organisational change.
These behavioural shifts delivered tangible operational outcomes. Environmental compliance improved substantially, with a major reduction in pollution incidents and non‑compliant sites. Improved planning, accountability and decision making contributed to financial savings of over £2 million, alongside wider performance improvements across the business.
Beyond measurable performance outcomes, the programme had a profound personal impact on participants, improving wellbeing, resilience and leadership confidence. This work embedded lasting behaviours, processes and norms that can be sustained as people join or leave the organisation. By placing emotionally intelligent leadership at the centre of performance, Arup and South West Water have created a resilient, high performing leadership team equipped to adapt, improve continuously and deliver lasting value for customers, communities and the environment.
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