Exploring the antecedents of shared leadership in event organisations

This research explores the antecedents of sharing leadership throughout an event management organisation. Previous research into shared leadership has been shown to improve team performance and effectiveness in organisations with team-based structures, involved in knowledge work and operating within high pressured environments. We propose therefore that shared leadership offers a useful solution to the problems presented by the rapidly changing and challenging event industry environment. However, little is known about how shared leadership happens within project multi-teams and research into the antecedents of shared leadership is still in its infancy. To enrich the current understanding, we employed exploratory qualitative research involving three case study organisations. Our findings were drawn from 34 in-depth interviews and 33 h of observation with participants from all layers of the management hierarchy and employees from across experiential event management agencies. We identified the antecedents of shared leadership at all levels of management: at the leadership team level, organisational leaders must communicate a clear vision, and act with transparency whilst empowering staff to enact leadership. At the project multi-team level, team members must be willing to collaborate with, and recognise the expertise of other team members and, at an individual level, employees must interact with empathy and good communication. Our findings illuminate how the sharing of leadership relies on multi-level interactions in which management, teams and individuals participate. Based on the findings, the implications for both theory and management practice are discussed and, given the exploratory, qualitative, nature of the study, future research directions are recommended.