The following Blog post relates to Northouse chapter on Team Leadership. In the blog, I’d like to talk about my leadership initiative that took place during the organization of a Psychedelic Trance party called California Sunshine, which took place on March 31st in New York. A little pre-history: Psychedelic trance is a musical genre that emerged in early 90’s and has had a good niche following since. The music is often composed by very experienced musicians and sound engineers, as it requires a lot of attention to detail, high musical skills sound generation and development and is often considered “intelligent music.” The goals of this event was to bring quality event production and quality Psy trance artists to New York City, as it lacked it for the past 5-6 years, slowly fading away Psy following and local scene. I believe my event has managed to revive and inspire local audience, as the party’s Facebook wall has been bombarded with complements and thank you letters.
Acting as event’s executive producer and organizer I have faced numerous leadership challenges, acquired much experience and learned a few important lessons. The major problem I faced was hiring a Decoration artist, who was a much-disliked person by many, which was something that I learned later. I had act as a mediator to establish team cohesion, effective communication and joint work. This required personal conversations with various individuals, including a disciplinary communication with the Deco artist, who immediately has managed to offend one of my team members. A bigger problem came during the event setup one day before the party. During the time that I was not present at the location, running various event arrons, I received a call from one of my team members, saying that the Deco artist has badly offended the venue owner, whom I rented the space from. I had to take an immediate action, requiring no additional assessment, because the fate of the production was now at stake. I have yelled at the Deco artist, making him understand that he is not to talk to anyone except me, because I hired him and he works for me. I have managed to earn his respect of my authority by showing him where was his place in my event production. Following this action the remaining work of my crew has been smooth and the event became a great success. Here ais an example of the responses received after the event:
:))) Awesome Event! Thanks to the Red Marines crew for all of the hard work and attention to detail that made it so Amazing! The Artists were perfect, and it sounded Great! I hope to see you again very soon! (((:
