Leaders are not born, they are made.
In today’s world, leadership skills are a critical component in career development. Companies and employees benefit from leadership training. By employing leadership training, companies are seen as innovative and inspire loyalty. Employees have higher job satisfaction and better salaries.
Are you ready to join the revolution and develop your leadership skills?
What is Leadership?
Defining leadership is more complicated than you think. Scholars, consultants, and historians struggle to define leadership. Disregard titles and personality traits when discussing leadership because it’s bigger than the letters after your name or a trite description of your personality.
Though there’s disagreement on a unified definition, some of the key elements of leadership are social influence, people, and a common goal. How these elements fit together, and what is required of each aspect remains the subject of discussion.
The coach of a sports team must consider leadership when addressing the team and making a game plan. A CEO certainly has leadership on their mind when making business deals, handling personnel issues, and managing public engagements. Are the coach or the CEO solely responsible for leadership of their respective teams? Probably not.
Leadership comes in many forms and involves leaders with different styles and experiences. They each play their part in a group of people, or a team, working toward a shared goal. Coach and CEO are merely titles conveying some type of authority position. There may be people beneath them in the hierarchy who exhibit better leadership.
Creating a definition of leadership is difficult because it covers a broad spectrum of actions and can take many forms. To understand leadership, it’s necessary to consider what makes a good leader.
What Makes a Good Leader?
What would happen if you walked up to a group of people and began ordering them to take specific actions? They would probably look at you like a crazy person. Even if you knew the people and if there was a semblance of context, you would not likely see results.
To develop good leadership skills, you need to know what abilities to build and how to use them to accomplish goals.
Learn Effective Communication Skills
Communication may be the most important leadership skill to develop. Effective communication is necessary to motivate and instruct members of your team. Good leaders speak honestly, pay attention to nonverbal cues, and know how to listen.
Build Your Confidence
To be an effective leader, you need to convince your team to believe in you. Self-confidence is the key, and that means being comfortable with who you are, including your faults.
Work Your Charm
Leaders are charismatic and often have a unique approach to connecting with people. Some people can walk into a room and know immediately who they need to reach. Others have an extraordinary intuition that gives them insight into an audience.
Have Personal and Professional Integrity
Acting with integrity is a quality most good leaders share. When your decisions and actions align with your morals and values, it builds trust and earns you respect. Doing the right thing will not always be easy, but it will help you develop as a good leader.
Share Your Passion
Enthusiasm is infectious. When you are passionate about your projects, it will inspire those around you. Additionally, when you love what you’re doing, it will be easier and more fun to accomplish your goals.
Activities for Team Leadership Building
Teamwork is key to establishing sound leadership in a company. Many team-building activities also develop leadership skills. You’ll find that these exercises involve at least some focus on communication skills because it is the most critical component to strong leadership.
Approaching leadership activities and exercises as an organization is an excellent way to foster loyalty, encourage internal promotions, and strengthen the bonds of your team. Organizations that actively build leadership skills at every level inspire employee engagement and loyalty.
Start with an Icebreaker
They’re called icebreakers for a reason. When your team is newer, or you’ve brought on new members, it’s a great idea to breakdown those initial walls.
What You Need
Create a numbered list of questions that are generally light but have the potential to reveal things about your team.
- Do you have any scars? Tell the story behind one of them.
- What is the most out-of-character thing you’ve ever done?
- Have you ever met anyone famous?
- What are you reading now, or what did you read most recently?
How to Play
Have your team sit in a room, preferably facing each other, and choose one person to pick a number. Ask the question associated with that number and discuss their answers.
Host a Mock Cocktail Party
Leadership is not about the title you hold, and this exercise reinforces that. The goal of these exercises is to break down walls and encourage collaboration at all levels of the company.
What You Need
This exercise requires four participants. You’ll need note cards or scraps of paper to be numbered one through four.
How to Play
Participants receive a note card with a number on it. The number corresponds to a specific role. One may represent a CEO and four an intern. Fill in the numbers and roles to represent the hierarchy of your company.
Each player will act their assigned role for a pretend cocktail party. The goal is to guess the role each person is playing. When the cocktail party concludes, participants should discuss how things played out and ideas for improving leadership roles going forward.
Compete in the Marshmallow Challenge
Break into teams for a fun exercise that fosters communication skills, collaboration, and innovation. You’ll get to see the leadership dynamics of your team and how it changes when broken out into smaller groups.
What You Need
Collect a bunch of nonsense building supplies like spaghetti, tape, string, and newspaper for this exercise. You’ll also need some marshmallows to determine the winner.
How to Play
Divide your group into teams of two or three and task them with building a free-standing structure with the supplies you’ve collected. Give them a set time of fifteen to twenty minutes. The team that builds the tallest structure that can hold a marshmallow on top is the winner.
Practice Active Listening
If you want to improve your communication skills, learn to listen better. This activity is for small groups of three people and encourages active listening as well as peer coaching skills.
What You Need
This exercise only requires groups of three people.
How to Play
Assign roles to each of the three people – subject, listener, and observer. The subject will discuss a particular question while the listener focuses on what they are saying, and the observer watches the dynamic between them. After five minutes, rotate roles until each player attempts all three.
Would You Survive a Disaster?
In the game of Survival, your group is broken into two teams to exercise their critical thinking and problem-solving skills while challenging them to think outside the box.
What You Need
You’ll need two teams with any number of players. Create a disaster situation, like a plane crash, and a list of items that could help.
How to Play
Tell the teams the details of the disaster and provide each with a list of items. Give the teams a set amount of time to choose the five items from the list that will be most helpful. When time is up, have the teams share their selections and the justification behind each.
Navigate a Minefield
When your team needs a break, this exercise will get them moving and encourage them to flex some leadership muscles. This activity explores communication and listening skills while building trust.
What You Need
You can play this game in an office with furniture or take it outside for a breath of fresh air. It’s important to have plenty of space and some obstacles to navigate (the mines). You’ll also need a blindfold.
How to Play
Divide into teams of two. One person wears the blindfold and must cross the minefield without running into an obstacle. The other person directs their blindfolded partner using four words – right, left, forward, and backward.
What Can You Say in Thirty Seconds?
Thirty Seconds Left is an exercise for emotional intelligence and communication skills. It challenges teams to make connections and make clear, concise responses.
What You Need
This is an activity for groups of any size. No supplies are necessary.
How to Play
Ask each member of your team to choose their best life experience. Give them time to reflect on the memory they chose. They must explain the experience to the group in thirty seconds or less.
Try Team Drawing
Back-to-back Drawing is a challenging but fun activity for pairs. It is an excellent activity for building communication skills.
What You Need
Each pair will require a pen, a pad of paper, and an object to draw.
How to Play
Sit the teammates back-to-back in chairs. Give one person the paper and pen to be the artist. The other describes the object without naming it. The artist must draw what their partner describes.
For this game, you may want to ban additional phrases depending on the object. You also may want to have two different objects so each partner can have a turn as the artist.
Host a Brainstorming Session
This won’t be your average brainstorming session. “Blue Sky” Brainstorming encourages creativity and innovation while breaking down walls between management and employees to promote collaboration.
What You Need
Create a hypothetical problem to be solved. An example would be the discovery of a new species of miniature elephants. This new species is a domestic animal, so people are adopting them as pets. You are a pet supply company that needs to quickly meet the needs of these new pet owners.
How to Play
There is only one team in this game, and you all work together to solve the problem, regardless of status in the company hierarchy. Ignore logistical barriers to solve the problem because it is hypothetical. Spend a set amount of time brainstorming solutions until you agree on the ultimate answer.
Try Low-Tech Social Networking
Social media is a fundamental part of our world and has impacted how many people do business. This exercise draws from social media to break down barriers and build relationships between team members.
What You Need
This works best in a room with a whiteboard that will serve as your interface. Provide index cards, markers in many different colors, and tape.
How to Play
Each participant will create a profile picture on an index card. They should add names and positions on the card. Tape the cards to the whiteboard with plenty of space between them.
Once all players are represented on the board, have each person take turns drawing lines from their card to each individual in the room that they know. Label each line with the type of connection, like “eat lunch together” or “attended the same college.”
When everyone has drawn their connections, you should have a map of relationships.
Create the Perfect Pitch
Have you ever wanted to be on Shark Tank? This activity gives your team a chance to experience the excitement and build some leadership skills. Mock Shark Tank encourages collaboration, creative thinking, and teamwork.
What You Need
Assign three or four people to be “Sharks.” Teams of two to six people will require pen and paper at a minimum. If you want to take it a step further, add a poster board, markers, and other supplies to build a presentation. You may also want to show clips of the show for inspiration.
How to Play
Break your group into teams of two to six people and task them with creating an imaginary product with a professional pitch. They will need a brand name, slogan, business plan, marketing plan, and financial data.
Give the “Sharks” imaginary pools of money to invest in their favorite products. Allow each team to present their products, and the team that scores the most investments wins.
Discuss Leadership Quotes
A wonderful starter activity encourages people to get creative and move a little. The Leadership Quote activity is an alternative to traditional icebreakers and asks participants to examine their values.
What You Need
You’ll need some space for this one, so make sure your room is large enough to accommodate some movement. Select several quotes about leadership and write them on large paper or whiteboards around the room.
How to Play
Instruct participants to read the quotes around the room. Each person should stand by the quote that most accurately demonstrates their leadership values. Spend some time discussing why each person selected their quote.
Address the Elephant in the Room
The Elephant List helps address big issues like a manager retiring. This activity encourages candid conversations and builds trust.
What You Need
An experienced facilitator is required for this exercise, especially if the topic being discussed is potentially contentious. You’ll also need “elephant sheets” that can be sticky notes or sheets of paper and three flip charts arranged in a circle in the room.
How to Play
Your team will work together for this activity. Explain that the purpose is to open lines of communication, identify problems for the team, and create solutions to move forward.
Address each elephant in the room with the CIA method. Your team will decide which issues they can control, influence, or accept. Label the three flip charts with the three principles of the CIA method.
Distribute the elephant sheets and ask each person to write down an elephant. They should also identify the elephant with a C for control, I for influence, or A for accept. Adding their names is optional.
Collect the elephants, read each aloud, and add them to the appropriate flip chart. Tackle each flip chart starting with the A elephants. Do those issues really have to be accepted? Then go through the C and I charts to see if any of those should move to the A list.
The remaining C and I elephants should be addressed with open conversations that address why, what, who, and when. Your team should be able to walk away with plans to address the elephants going forward.
Create a Leadership Crest
When a team is in dire need of a creative outlet, this activity can be helpful while encouraging them to look at your company’s values.
What You Need
Pull together art supplies and a flip chart or large board for list-making.
How to Play
Create four separate categories for your team to address. Together you will list leadership skills, values that help influence others, recent accomplishments, and things you like about your job. Make a list for each section and discuss the topics openly. Which list was easiest? Are the company values represented?
Determine the most popular answers and build your leadership crest around them. Feel free to be as creative as you like and keep the conversation going as you create the crest.
Pass the Hoop
For teams in need of a laugh, this activity is fun and focuses on communication and problem-solving skills.
What You Need
Make sure you have plenty of space, a team of at least five people, and a hula hoop.
How to Play
Arrange your team in a circle and have them join hands. One person will be given a hula hoop over one arm. The objective is to pass the hula hoop around the circle without letting go of each other’s hands.
Start an Improv Class
While this exercise builds communication skills, it also promotes self-awareness, self-confidence, listening skills, and creativity. It may be challenging for shy teams.
What You Need
Prior to the exercise, brainstorm a list of characters, locations, and situations. Write the characters, locations, and situations on slips of paper and separate them into three piles. You’ll want plenty of room for this activity, so keep in mind the size of your group.
How to Play
Arrange an “audience” and make room for a stage. Select a few people to perform, and the rest of the group will be the audience. The performers will each select a persona from the character pile. One person will select a scenario and location for the performers will act it out.
An alternative is to have the audience call out scenarios and locations. You can also abruptly change up the performance by throwing in a “plot twist” in the form of another player, a disaster, or a new scenario.
How to Build Individual Leadership Skills
Developing your personal leadership skills could be a huge step in your life. Leaders dedicate time to learning because they know that growth and knowledge are the keys to success. Even the greatest leaders continue exploring and educating themselves on new topics. Here are some ideas for the individual development of leadership skills.
Assess Your Strengths and Weaknesses
While leaders are generally not born, we all have some innate talents and specific weaknesses. Good leaders understand their strengths and weaknesses. They work to improve skills that don’t come naturally.
You may be well aware of your weaknesses and ready to dive into those exercises, but if you’re not, try to determine your leadership style. Each leadership style is associated with different strengths and weaknesses. Knowing your preferred methods is a great place to start.
Study Leaders You Admire
Living or dead, there are plenty of great leaders to learn from. Make a list of people you admire for their leadership skills and compare the traits and characteristics they share. What can you learn from them?
Take a Class
One thing that most good leaders share is their love of learning. They aren’t satisfied with what they know and constantly pursue knowledge. You don’t have to go back to school to earn a degree, but taking a class can help you grow new skills and interests.
Explore some of the online courses through professional development sites. You can also check out a community college, library, or local businesses for classes that interest you.
Address Your Communication Skills
In today’s world, there are so many ways to reach people that communication is more complicated than ever. However, communication remains one of the most crucial skills in leadership. You need to be able to interpret what is essential, empathize with other people, deliver information clearly, and concisely.
If you truly hope to improve your communication skills to be a better leader, take time to work on your listening skills. The ability to listen, interpret, and understand what people are telling you is crucial.
- Try paraphrasing what somebody is telling you and repeating it back as a question to ensure you understand. You’ll also let the other person know that you relate.
- Hold eye contact when listening. It’s not just respectful, it allows you to pick up on nonverbal cues.
- Be open in conversation. Stand with an open posture to show interest and ask open-ended questions to encourage more thoughtful responses.
- Work your nonverbal cues by nodding and matching your facial expressions to the topic of discussion.
Remember, some technology makes it difficult to use all of your communication skills because it prevents the reading of nonverbal cues. This means you may have to ask for clarification and rely more on other skills to assess what is being relayed to you.
For written communications, be aware of your grammar and word choice. You may want to brush up on modern grammar rules and avoid heavy use of slang.
Boost Your Self-Confidence
If you’re looking for your magic feather, stop. Building self-confidence doesn’t have to be difficult, but it is necessary. Take some time to evaluate why you doubt your abilities and tackle those issues.
- Ask who you want to be. Visualize the best version of yourself, achieving your goals. Once you identify your ideal self, take actions that are consistent with that version of you. It will help you break through self-sabotaging behaviors.
- Try new things every day. It doesn’t have to be something huge, like skydiving, but baby steps go a long way.
- Set attainable goals for yourself. Small wins are a big deal and bolster your confidence. Create a series of small goals that build to major milestones.
- Help other people. Not only will you feel good about helping somebody else, but you’ll also be grateful for what you have.
- Practice self-care. Your confidence will be low if you’re not feeling healthy. Take care of your physical, emotional, and social needs.
Practice Doesn’t Make Perfect
When it comes to leadership, there is no option for perfection. Even the greatest leaders acknowledge that they make mistakes and have room to grow. It doesn’t benefit anybody to pretend that the goal is perfection. Leadership is about acknowledging the continuous room for improvement.
Developing your leadership skills will set you on a path toward something bigger. These leadership activities and exercises are meant to open doors and conversations that may otherwise remain closed. Approaching them with an open mind and understanding is a recipe for success.