Leadership and Event Planning

Most people think the whole point of event planning, after all, is to plan an event and that’s it. But there is more to event planning than what most people think. We live in a world where crisis happens often, people only think of weather disasters and news reports, such as, hurricanes, tornados, earth quakes, shootings, kidnappings, terrorist’s attacks, plane crashes, etc. But most people do not acknowledge crisis in organizations, whether it is profit or non-profit companies, crisis happens more often than expected. Luckily, there are many of these organizations and companies that respond quickly when a crisis emerges. However, this is not always the case, but as an event planner there are countless disasters that can happen while planning for an event. Therefore, to be a successful event planner involves not only planning an event but also planning for the absolute worst case scenarios.

The purpose for this paper is to combine leadership and event planning in crisis and to provide successful strategies, for professional event planners to follow. The four main strategies of leadership in crisis are (1) Crisis Types (2) Crisis Stages (3) Crisis Management Plan (4) Effective Communication. Event planner leaders must be aware of each of these elements.

Research has indicated that being a leader in event planning is important and to begin this, you must prepare and plan ahead for crisis event rather than falling victim to them. Hackman and Johnson (2009) claim specific categories, types, and stages of a crisis, stating that knowing your enemy “is the first step to effective crisis in leadership. Leaders cannot prepare or manage a crisis until they have a better understanding of what crises are at hand and how they unfold. Crise...

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...each party of their responsibilities and “be prepared to convince your organization that the event is very important (poses a great risk), is an immediate threat and can’t be solved through ordinary measures and procedures. Put the crisis management plan into action and mobilize the crisis management team” (Hackman & Johnson, 2009).

In conclusion, research has indicated that there are several strategies to become a strong leader in event planning and in general, the event planner should plan ahead way in advance. After this, the event planner should check and double-check and be constantly aware and prepared for a crisis event to occur. Leaders are the face in an organization and knowing the crisis types, crisis stages, creating a crisis management plan, and knowing how to lead during the crisis event are strategies essential to being a successful crisis leader.