Why Emotional Intelligence Is Important For An Event Planner

As an event planner, you’re expected to be charismatic, confident, and approachable. You’re expected to be a natural storyteller, capable of holding anyone’s attention for as long as necessary. You’re expected, above all, to manage people as much as you are events.

For a job like event planning, emotional intelligence is a vital trait to possess.

At its core, the term refers to our ability to perceive, understand, control, and interpret emotions. It’s about being in control of how we feel, and knowing why we feel that way. More importantly, it’s about being able to pick up on how other people feel.

Someone who’s emotionally intelligent will possess a high degree of self-awareness and self-control, a great deal of motivation, and (most importantly), a healthy dose of empathy. By contrast, someone lacking in emotional intelligence might be volatile, hypocritical, or lacking in consideration for those around them. Which of the two would you rather deal with?

Your answer is the same as anyone else’s – you want to deal with the person who’s actually in control of what’s going on in their own head (and who can respond to what’s going on in yours). Since much of your job involves managing clients, partners, and teams of volunteers; it’s important that you be able to connect with and relate to them. People like it when someone ‘gets’ them, and they tend to grow frustrated when someone’s clearly ignorant of how they’re feeling.

What I’m saying here is that without understanding the people around you, it’s near-impossible to motivate and lead them (or even get them to like you, for that matter).

Further, someone with a high level of emotional intelligence is capable of controlling their emotions. They’re able to self-regulate, meaning they aren’t as likely to become angry or jealous. They’re also less likely to make careless, impulsive decisions – decisions which should be avoided at all costs in event management.

Basically, you need to be someone that’s able to keep a cool head, regardless of the situation.

As I’m certain you’re well aware, event planning is an extremely high-stress, high-energy job. Things are going to go wrong. Clients are going to come in with unrealistic expectations, vendors are going to bail; equipment is going to die on you. If you’re incapable of keeping things under control, you’re going to freak out at the first sign of trouble.

That’s never a good thing. Anger and anxiety are almost never helpful emotions, especially when one’s dealing with logistics. If you lose your head, then your event is probably going south at warp speed.

As an event planner, you need to be charismatic, confident, and approachable. You need to be able to keep a cool head, even when everyone around you is in panic mode. In short, you need to be able to manage yourself just as readily as you manage your events; able to manage your emotions just as readily as you manage others. If you don’t possess emotional intelligence, you aren’t going to be capable of doing so.

If you don’t possess emotional intelligence, then you probably aren’t cut out to be an event planner.