Effective Leadership for Event Management Teams

This assignment explores two major ways to lead a team effectively: relationship building and strategic thinking. The first perspective focuses on creating a cordial work environment by addressing team members' problems through effective communication. Strategic thinking is then applied using the strength of planning, analyzing business information to facilitate smooth project completion. By leveraging these strengths, event managers can ensure their teams achieve common objectives.

Running head: PROFESSIONAL SKILLS DEVELOPMENT
Professional Skills Development
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note

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Table of Contents
Task 1...............................................................................................................................................2
Task 2...............................................................................................................................................5
References........................................................................................................................................8

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Task 1
In today’s business world, Event and Entertainment Industry is considered as one of the
growing industries. For the successful completion of different events, it is the prime reasonability
of the event and entertainment manager to develop a skillful team (O'Neil 2014). Thus, at the
time of the team building, the manager is required to consider certain aspects that add skills to
the teams. The following discussion uncovers these aspects for the purpose of team building in
the event industry:
Belbin Team Roles: According to the suggestions of Belbin, for the development of a balanced
team in the event industry, it is required for the event manager to understand the team members
so that the strateghts can be maximized and the weaknesses can be minimized. For this reason, it
is required for the event manager to use the Belbin model for the creation of a balanced team. As
per Belbin, the event manager is needed to consider nine team roles and to identify the team
members that can be assigned with the role (Batenburg, Walbeek and Maur 2013). Three action-
oriented roles are Shaper (SH), Implementer (IMP) and Completer-Finisher (CF). Shapers are the
dynamic and extrovert people challenging the team for improvement. Implementers take the
responsibility to get the tasks done. Completer-Finisher is the people responsible for ensuring
that there is no mistake and error in the events. Thus, the event manager is required to assign
these role to the appropriate members in the team. The next three people oriented roles are
Coordinator (CO), Team Worker (TW) and Resource Investigator (RI) (Senaratne and
Gunawardane 2015). Coordinators can be considered as the vice team leader and the manager
need to assign this role to the most dynamic member in the team. All members of the team are
required to be team worker in order to ensure the achievement of the target. Resource

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investigators have the responsibility to make negotiation of the resources on behalf of the team.
Three thought oriented roles are Plant (PT), Monitor-Evaluator (ME) and Specialist (SP). The
members considered as Plant always come up with new ideas and approaches. After that, the
Monitor-Evaluators analyze and evaluate these ideas. Lastly, the Specialists apply their special
knowledge to get the job done (Senaratne and Gunawardane 2015). Thus, from the above
discussion, it can be seen that the event managers is needed to consider all these roles as all of
them are required for the success of the team and the event programs.
Interpersonal Skills and Effective Communication: The importance of interpersonal skills
cannot be ignored and the event manager is needed to consider these skills for team
development. The first skill is Effective Communication as it can be considered as the glue that
holds the team together. There should not be any hurled in the team in openly communicate the
ideas (Robles 2012). After that, Respect for the team members is an integral part for developing
the team in the event industry. Most importantly, Involvement is needed from each team member
for the completion of any event. Lastly, Fairness is considered as the key interpersonal skill for
leading a team towards success as it helps in the increase of team cohesion (Robles 2012). Thus,
it can be observed that the event manager is required to consider these interpersonal skills for
building a team.
Conflict Resolution and Intercultural Awareness: Conflict among the team members is
inevitable and thus the event manager is required to consider the major strategies for resolving
team conflict (Brubaker et al. 2014). When there is any conflict in the team, the event manager is
required to underrated and acknowledge the problem. At the same time, the event managers
should be patience enough so that any kind of coercion and intimidation can be avoided. After
that, the event manager is needed to establish guidelines for resolving conflicts. In addition, the

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manager needs to have intercultural awareness as there could be people from different cultures in
the team (Brubaker et al. 2014).
Ethics and Professional Conduct: The event managers is also needed to consider the
implementation of ethics and professional conducts within the team. For this reason, the event
manager must establish policies for ethics and professional conduct so that the team members
can adhere to them. There needs to be honesty, integrity and professional accountability among
the members of the team. Ethics and professional conducts are considered as the keys to success
of the team (Delany and Conwell 2012).
Other Relevant Professional Skills: Apart from the above-discussed skills, the event manager
needs to consider some other skills for the development of team. The team members should be
able to lead team when required. Another important skill is Industry Expertise. In the presence of
industry expertise, the members of the team will be able to make effective decisions related with
the project. Some other necessary skills required for team building are time management,
commitment, trustworthiness, problem solving ability, confidence and others (Carnevale and
Smith 2013).

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Task 2
It is not an easy job to lead a team, as the leaders are required to consider many aspects
while leading the team. For this reason, at the time of leading a team, the leaders are needed to
make use of their strengths and style of management. In today’s business world, the technique of
strengths-based leadership has become vastly popular among the managers of the event industry
due to its effectiveness (Welch et al. 2014). Under this technique, the event mangers use to focus
on their core competencies or strengths to lead the team. In my case, I would prefer the adoption
of the strategy of strateghts-based leadership in order to lead my team for managing the event.
From the result of the portfolio task, I have identified my major strengths and management style;
they are effective teamwork, good communication skill, ability to work under stress, team
development skill and planning skill. In case of my event management team, I will adopt a
specific strategy for leading my team and there will be four components of my strategy (Welch et
al. 2014). They are execution, creating influence, relationship building and strategic thinking.
The following discussion shows he detailed explanation of these strategies:
Execution: Execution is one of the major aspects for leading the team. It is essential for the
event managers to have the ability of executing all the required tasks for the successful
implementation of any event. In this context, I would like to mention that I have certain strengths
that will help me in the execution of the project tasks by effectively leading my team. In this
area, it is require using my strength of good teamwork. By using this strength, I will
communicate the goals and objectives of the particular event among the team members so that
they can get necessary direction to execute the tasks. In addition, I will provide proper direction
to my team members about the completion of the project so that they can execute the tasks in a

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reasonable manner. All these aspects are highly beneficial for leading the team (Schoemaker,
Krupp and Howland 2013).
Creation of Influence: Another major way I will adopt for leading my event management team
is the creation of positive influence on the team members. For this reason, I will implement
certain techniques for creating positive influence on the team members. I will establish certain
standard of work ethics within the team so that the morale of the team members becomes high
(Johansen 2012). After that, I will show them the techniques so that they can become able to
work under immense pressure. It needs to be mentioned that the event and entertainment industry
is full of work pressure and the team members are required to be learnt to work under pressure.
In this case, by using the strength of development skill, I will make the team members aware
about the ways to develop interpersonal skill for the successful achievement of the team
objectives (Johansen 2012). These are considered as the essential aspects for leading a team in
the effective manner.
Relationship Building: To build cordial and friendly relation with the team members is
considered as one of the major ways to lead a team. Relationship building refers to the process of
encouraging the team members to work together for the achievement of common goals and
objectives. In this process, I have the responsibility to know about different kinds of needs and
problems of the team members (Key-Roberts 2014). For this purpose, I need to apply one of my
strengths that is effective communication skill. Effective communication is the only factor
through which I will be able to know amour the difficulties and needs of my team members. It is
possible to develop a cordial relationship with my team members when I will be able to provide
solution of their problems. The team members will be highly encouraged to complete the project
when their problems will be effectively resolved (Key-Roberts 2014).

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Strategic Thinking: Strategic thinking is considered as another major way for the managers to
effectively lead the team. It is required for an event manager to think strategically so that
effective planning can be done (Zahra and Nambisan 2012). There is not any exception of this
fact in my case. I will also adopt the strategy of strategic thinking by using one of the my major
strengths; that is planning skill. It needs to be mentioned that there is a positive relation between
strategic thinking and effective work planning as planning is the outcome of the action of
strategic thinking. In this process, I will analyze various business information and I will explain
them to my team members so that they do not face any difficulty while achieving the team
objectives. In the above-discussed manners, I will lead my event management team from
different perspectives using my core strengths.

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References
Batenburg, R., van Walbeek, W. and in der Maur, W., 2013. Belbin role diversity and team
performance: is there a relationship?. Journal of Management Development, 32(8), pp.901-913.
Brubaker, D., Noble, C., Fincher, R., Park, S.K.Y. and Press, S., 2014. Conflict resolution in the
workplace: What will the future bring?. Conflict Resolution Quarterly, 31(4), pp.357-386.
Carnevale, A.P. and Smith, N., 2013. Workplace basics: The skills employees need and
employers want.
Delany, C. and Conwell, M., 2012. Ethics and teamwork for pediatric medical imaging
procedures: insights from educational play therapy. Pediatric radiology, 42(2), pp.139-146.
Johansen, R., 2012. Leaders make the future: Ten new leadership skills for an uncertain world.
Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Key-Roberts, M., 2014. Strengths-based leadership theory and development of subordinate
leaders. Military Review, 94(2), p.4.
O'Neil, H.F. ed., 2014. Workforce readiness: Competencies and assessment. Psychology Press.
Robles, M.M., 2012. Executive perceptions of the top 10 soft skills needed in today’s
workplace. Business Communication Quarterly, 75(4), pp.453-465.
Schoemaker, P.J., Krupp, S. and Howland, S., 2013. Strategic leadership: The essential
skills. Harvard business review, 91(1), pp.131-134.

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Senaratne, S. and Gunawardane, S., 2015. Application of team role theory to construction design
teams. Architectural Engineering and Design Management, 11(1), pp.1-20.
Welch, D., Grossaint, K., Reid, K. and Walker, C., 2014. Strengths-based leadership
development: Insights from expert coaches. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and
Research, 66(1), p.20.
Zahra, S.A. and Nambisan, S., 2012. Entrepreneurship and strategic thinking in business
ecosystems. Business horizons, 55(3), pp.219-229.