Activities to Develop Leadership Skills

There are certain leadership qualities and activities that develop leadership skills very effectively. Leaders are generally great orators, creative, diplomatic, knowledgeable about different group functions, systematized, and compassionate. Thus, the various traits of a leader include the will to inspire others, to be dominant, having faith in self and confidence about one’s decisions, accountability, gel to different situations, volunteering to take responsibility, energy, resilience to stress, and assertive.

Leadership Skills Building Activities

Minefield:

In this activity, participants are divided into groups and one member is blindfolded. Then, other members have to guide him through the minefield with a limited set of instructions. This activity is suitable for both outdoor spaces and regular office spaces; it is helpful for enhancing communication skills and building trust within the team. Thus, for a competent leader having a cohesive team and being a great orator are greater assets.

Assigning Company Values:

The individual who best represents a certain value of the company for a month’s period receives appreciation publicly. This would be done by the peer voting method. It assists in encouraging employees to keep on par with the goals of the organization. It is also essential that a leader maintains focus and works towards the company’s vision.

Recognition:

It is a key to keep the employee remain focused or even take extra effort. If the employee had worked hard or came up with innovative ideas that helped the company, identifying and acknowledging their act would make them work extra as it gives a feel-good effect. This develops an attitude to go the extra mile or to take a little extra effort, which is essential in a leader.

Feedback:

As humans, we look for comments or inputs from others for the betterment of ourselves. Proper feedback helps us to know our strengths and weakness and improves our performance in the future. Giving and receiving feedback is an art. One should give feedback with a proper intention, based on evidence, clarity in their content, and should help for individual betterment. One should also be open to criticisms and work at improving them. This helps in self-growth. Being able to give appropriate feedback makes a leader stand out and also it reflects in the production of the organization.

The Human Icebreaker:

This activity helps in bonding and encourages participants to open up and lead to discussion. It is essential for a leader to develop inter-personal skills and communication skills and this activity aids that. The participants must generate a chain of questions relating to people in a general way. The participants then have to look for answers to their questions and get to know their team members.

Leaders You Admire: 

Participants are grouped into teams and they have to come up with one leader they admire the most by discussing their opinions. And they have to identify the leadership qualities and style of the person they chose. This helps gain what leadership style the team admires.

Round Tables:

This is a group activity, with each group assigned a different task.  Then the team chooses a leader who would assign different steps of the task to each member of the team and they must coordinate with each other to complete it. This is an activity that helps develop leadership skills and delegation skills and helps to understand the various strengths of each member.

Tallest Tower: 

Participants as a team build a tower using newspaper. They build the tallest freestanding structure using the newspaper. This is an ideal activity for creative problem solving and improving collaboration skills, which are essential for a leader.

Plane Crash: 

This one is quite interesting where participants are in a position to imagine them to be on a trip. They have to come up with the most essential items for the trip, say 5 items in total. Then, each item is ranked in its importance and the entire group has to come to a consensus. The activity proves to be an excellent problem-solving and collaboration activity.

Contact us if you are interested in a leadership program that is tailored to the needs of your organization or team.