Leading your Team
Effective communication is an essential part of any successful team. As the leader you are responsible for ensuring that all relevant information is distributed to team members. Without effective communication there can be no leadership.
Particularly in the case of event management, the importance of communication and event briefings and not be stressed enough. Provided all staff are fully informed, they will be motivated to promote the event to customers in the best light and work to the best of their ability. The successes of which must be reported back to staff to further increase their level of motivation.
Mostly it has to be fun, that’s why event staff and volunteers get involved in events, that and to help their community. Therefore the event manager has to model positive attitudes and behaviours so that staff and volunteers will follow the cues. Absolutely vital: communication, energizing and motivating activities, positive reinforcement/feedback, good quality customer service.
Use motivation strategies to help encourage staff to perform to the best of their abilities. Such motivational iade include, tickets to the show/event, access to “after parties”, job rotation, Like volunteers, event staff need to be recognised and rewarded also.
“Accurate expectations of the less exciting parts of the job, combined with a positive team spirit, are the outcomes of good leadership” – Lynn Van Der Wagen, Event Management 3rd Edition.
The challenges of Event leaders are two-fold given the often short-term nature of events, the various elements, venues, and stages of the event and varying shifts of diverse teams consisting of temporary or contract staff and volunteers, along with a multitude of stakeholders to deal with, ranging from government agencies, through to suppliers and contractors.
Being a Role Model Means
Senior staff need to “set the tone” for staff and volunteers to model, so demonstrate best practice at all times. This of course is hard to do under pressure that comes with the nature of events.
As the leader of a team, some of the roles that you play are:
You need to be able to send and receive information clearly in order to be an effective communicator.
‘Some key attributes of team leaders’
- They have a high tolerance for uncertainty
- They are open to new information and ideas
- They are able to see situations from other viewpoints (customers, competitors, team members, management)
- They are able to develop multiple options and solutions
- Their focus is on conceptual based outcomes and results not tasks
- They are able to select the right people for the task
- They identify, develop and draw on individual team members’ talents
- They know how to reward people for their efforts
- They are teachers and coaches
- They empower their team members to make decisions they are trained and equipped to make
Source: Management theory and practice 3rd Edition, Kris Cole
To do
Activity – Skills check for team leaders
How ready are you to be a team leader?
Use the following checklist of skills and attributes that team leaders need, to self assess how ready you are:
- Willingness to share control
- Job knowledge
- Willingness to be of and not above the team
- Able to inject some fun
- Conflict resolution skills
- Able to get people to share your vision
- Motivation skills
- able to instill pride in individuals and the team
- Team-building skills
- approachable
- Coaching skills
- able to unite people
- Change-facilitation skills
- able to empower people
- Networking skills
- empathy and caring for team members
- Communication skills
- action and results orientated
- Interpersonal skills
- willingness to learn
- Able to understand how the team thinks and
feels – emotional intelligence - trustworthiness, honesty, personal integrity
- high self-esteem