ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the leadership of an organising committee and how it is structured or organised. It discusses a variety of leadership approaches which could be used to understand a major sports event’s leader. The chapter explores commonly found leadership styles in events: the artistic or sport, autocratic, bureaucratic, democratic, entrepreneurial, and technocratic styles. It describes the critical skills and abilities the leader of a major sports event should have, focusing particularly on the importance of networks. The chapter outlines organising committee structures, noting the different hierarchical levels of paid staff and volunteers. It provides different configurations to describe the evolution of the organising committee’s structure. There are a variety of leadership theories that could be applicable to major sports events, depending on what aspect of leadership sport management researchers’ are interested in. By the 1990s, researchers were moving away from transactional approaches in favour of charismatic and transformational leadership approaches.
