Leadership is an essential and long-sought-after skill. Sometimes it’s an inherent quality that people possess, but more often, excellent leadership skills are learned. There are many ways to learn excellent leadership skills, such as through real-world experience, but sometimes it becomes necessary to teach leadership skills directly.
However, leadership isn’t something that’s conveyed well through the written word alone. Instead, experiencing it and acting it out, regardless of success or failure, is necessary. This is where leadership games come in!
Leadership games are an excellent way to teach leadership skills to others through experience while keeping things fun and lighthearted. You can even turn it into a competition to engage more ambitious team members if you want, or you can keep things casual and low-pressure. In the sections below, we’ll go through several of the best leadership games.
Pass the Hoop
If you’ve been to a work-related camp, you’ve probably heard of (or played) pass the hoop before. While some might not like the game because of your close proximity with coworkers, it’s an excellent game for promoting teamwork, communication, and understanding. Under the conditions of the game, good leaders and communicators are sure to emerge.
Problem-solving skills are also tested with this exercise. Of course, there are some flexibility challenges, too, which is great for improving physical skills – a nice bonus! Do be aware, though, that if you have any participants that are on the heavier side, the challenge might not go as well for them. Make sure to be courteous of all participants if you want to use this leadership game.
Yet another beneficial aspect of the game is the ability to split people into groups based on ability. For example, you can put people with excellent leadership skills into one group and people with poor leadership skills into another. This would spur both groups to develop better leadership skills without any one person standing out too much.
Traditionally, this game is done with a hula hoop. However, if that isn’t ideal for your group, you can also do it with other things, such as:
- Walls with human-shaped holes
- Lengths of string tied together
- Hurdles or limbo bars
- Tunnels or obstacles
- T-shirts
Anything that can cause the players of the game to go through specific challenges or puzzles, especially when it requires a bit of thought or teamwork to get out of, can work as a “pass the hoop” type game.
Most importantly, though, this game tests communication between team members, and excellent communication skills are vital for any leader. While this game isn’t a game that directly promotes leadership, it does build one of the skills that are most vital for being a good leader.
All Aboard
The game “All Aboard” is a game that’s meant to test critical thinking as well as communication. It works with problems solving, too. In this game, team members are given wood, mats, blankets, or anything similar to build a “boat” out of. To survive, they must all stand on this boat at the same time.
The catch of this game is that, as things go on, more and more pieces of the boat are removed. The team needs to use their critical thinking skills to save as many of the group as possible.
The best part of this game is the ability to test your players’ team composition skills. As the size of the boat gets smaller, your team members will need to decide which pieces of the ship are likely to be safest. This is an excellent way to exercise their critical thinking skills. However, this assumes that the way you’re playing will take random pieces away from the boat.
You don’t have to play the game that way, however! You can add in new rules, take out predetermined pieces, or virtually anything else. Feel free to add in any practices that will inconvenience (but in a good way) your players and test their brainpower. If you’re having trouble thinking of some, though, consider these ideas:
- Disqualifying the whole team when one person “falls” off the “boat” to test how long they can last
- Restricting how many times the team can move in one turn
- Varying the sizes of the boat pieces
- Giving each “piece” a set amount of time before it expires
Leadership Envelopes
This leadership game is more of a brain-building match than the two we’ve mentioned so far. This game isn’t as focused on physical activity, but it’s excellent for spurring the development of real-life leadership skills in the game’s players.
In this game, your first step is to ask the team to write down as many leadership principles as they can think of. Some examples might include teamwork, listening to everyone, and bringing out their followers’ best.
However, this isn’t the end of this activity, either! The next thing for you to do is to choose one of these leadership principles. You might even want to fold them into envelopes and have your team select one at random – hence “leadership envelopes.”
Once your team has chosen a leadership principle, have them each brainstorm a real-life scenario or two where they would put that principle to use. For example, if someone’s chosen the principle of listening, one example might be sitting down with friends or colleagues to ask them what concerns or thoughts they might have. You can get much more specific, too, and mention a real-life occurrence if you prefer.
Tallest Tower
In your schooling or your workplace, you’ve probably played a team-building tower game before. The “tallest tower” game is an example of this that’s meant to test the participants’ teamwork, creativity, and problem-solving. However, this game is different in that the builders are given several different materials to use and choose from.
For example, builders might be given pasta, toothpicks, straws, blocks, and more to build with. While they would have the choice of using exclusively one material, they might not be able to grow as high as another group that used various materials.
The beautiful thing about this game is that it tests both teamwork and problem-solving. People in the group will do best if they recognize that some members have better problem-solving skills than others. If one member refuses to yield to others who might be better at tower-building, their team won’t win; on the other hand, if team members who have more experience refuse to speak up and offer their aid, they could also end up losing.
However, in the end, the efforts of every single person are required to build a tower, too. If you’re to build a strong tower with four pillars, for example, four people must hold them up at the same time. Four minds and four bodies need to be behind the building of the tower for it to stand tall.
There are several ways to make this game even more interesting, too. You can give your builders glue or tape to hold their tower together to make their structures grow even taller, and you can have them balance something on top to test the stability. A ping-pong ball is a great place to start.
Enforcing a time limit is another excellent way to turn up the heat on this game. By giving your players only a small amount of time to build their tower, it limits the finesse and planning they can put into it. Instead, they’ll need to work as a team and try out new strategies on the fly.
Of course, you can alter this strategy however you’d like. If you want to give your team time to strategize, you can provide them with a minute or two of purely strategical time before the actual building begins. This is just one example, though.
Maneuver the Minefield
This game is exactly how it sounds: you must help another member of your team navigate a “minefield.” Generally, the game goes like this: one person in the group wears a blindfold or other mask while the rest set up a “minefield” for the blindfolded to navigate. Naturally, the course would be adjusted between each challenger.
This activity tests the trust between the members of each team. The rest of the group, who remain unblindfolded, are usually left to instruct the challenger through the course.
There are many different ways that you can change or up the difficulty level of Maneuver the Minefield. One common way to do this is to limit the words that the players can say to the challenger to help them through the maze. For example, they might be limited to words like left, right, forward, and backward to keep things simple.
While this is a deceptively simple game, it’s a great way to build trust between team members. It would be a bad idea to intentionally lead team members into obstacles, for example. As long as the atmosphere between team members is civil, they shouldn’t have any problem with this game.
Additionally, this game is one that gives every person an equal chance to participate and be acknowledged by the rest of the group, one after another. While this makes it a bit long, especially if you’re working with a large group (large groups can benefit by being split into smaller ones), it’s a great way to make individuals feel like part of the team.
Human Icebreaker
The “human icebreaker” game isn’t a team-building game like many of the ones we’ve looked at already, but it’s still an excellent leadership game. Instead, this game is focused on getting to know your team members, making everyone feel comfortable together, and generally breaking the ice – hence “human icebreaker.”
This game is pretty simple to play; you don’t even need a large or specialized space to play it in. As long as you can get all of the players together in one area, you’re good to begin. However, this activity is best for groups of people that are meeting each other for the first time. If everyone (or even most of the people) in the group already know each other well, the game won’t be fair.
To begin, write up a set of conditions that team members must answer. If you want, you can have the team members come up with these, too, or even volunteer ideas. Once you have a list of conditions (make sure it’s a decent-sized list), ask the team members to find someone within the group which fulfills each of those criteria. Some examples of rules might be:
- Blue eyes
- Ambidextrous
- Long hair
- Pink shirt
For instance, if they have a condition such as “left-handed” on the list, they would need to approach people until they found someone who was left-handed, then record their name on the list when they did find someone.
There are plenty of ways to make this game more challenging, too! For example, consider forbidding your players from putting duplicates on the list. This adds a bit of critical thinking into the game. Also, your players will have to choose which condition they put each person under carefully, and they’ll need to talk to someone for long enough to ask more than one question of them, too.
Leadership Pizza
What does a pizza pie look like? A pie chart, of course! As you might have guessed, this game is all about creating a pie chart that designates the most important qualities people view in a leader. For this activity, each person should make their own pie chart, though you might consider making a “master” pie chart to get their ideas flowing, too.
Try to get each person to fill in all eight slices on their pizza pie, but if they can’t quite reach eight, that’s okay. You might consider having people share what’s on their cakes (if they feel comfortable) to help people who are short complete their pies.
After everyone’s pies are as full as possible, have people figure out whether they possess the qualities they’ve listed in their cakes. Have them “eat” or fill in each slice of pizza by the level that they feel they fulfill that quality. The fewer slices or fractions of slices they have at the end, the better off they are!
Of course, you shouldn’t stop here, though. From here, each individual should pinpoint which traits they need to work on the most (if they filled in all of the slices on their pie, they could borrow others’ ideas, too). Each person should come up with ideas and plans of how they would go about developing their traits further or fostering the development of features they don’t have.
While this activity is relatively straightforward, you can turn it on its head by changing it into a team-based action instead. Instead of pizza pies for individuals, you can have team members each contribute a piece to the pie, pointing out things that the team as a whole needs to work on. This is a great way to point out and address the shortcomings of an organization while keeping the air clean at the same time.
Alternatively, you can turn this activity on its head by starting with people instead of traits. Have the participants pick out a leader that they admire, then put the reasons why they admire that leader in the pizza pie. Then, continue with the game as usual.
Center Stage
For this activity, your team should be prepared for a little role-playing – specifically, in groups of four. You can make this work in groups of three or five if you have odd numbers of people to work with, too. To start, designate one team member as a problematic employee – one that isn’t benefitting the company and needs to be addressed.
Imagine that this employee has not been pulling their weight somehow. Maybe they’re not showing up to work when they should be, or perhaps they’re not fulfilling their duties while at work. Make up a somewhat detailed story about this employee – the more accurate it is, the easier it will be to address the next step.
Next, the other three people in the group get to be the “manager” (in this case, the leader in the scenario). The manager needs to deal with the problematic employee in an appropriate way. Each of the three managers should address the employee in the way that they think is best.
When all three managers are done, everyone in the group should talk about which approach was best, which approaches needed work, and what everyone could do differently to improve the situation. This should be an open, judgment-free discussion without hard feelings; everyone is working to become a better leader with this exercise.
There are a few tweaks you can make to Center Stage to keep things exciting and test different creative muscles. For example, instead of dealing with a problematic employee, your team members could practice dealing with problematic customers instead. You could also have them practice things like interviews, how to ask for a raise or promotion, and how to raise questions and concerns with their superiors.
Stand Up
This is an excellent game to play if you only have a handful of players who can participate. For this game, the object is to have two players sit on the floor and clasp hands. Both players must sit on the floor together with their feet and hands together. The challenge is to have both players stand at the same time from this position.
While not an easy game, Stand Up is a great way to foster cooperation, trust, problem-solving, and teamwork. If you want, you can have bystanders cheer the team on or offer ideas, or you can have everyone be silent. Changing up the positions that players must start from is an excellent way to keep things exciting (and challenging)!
Unfortunately, this isn’t really a game that works with more than two players, unless you want to find new positions for the players to start from. This is possible, but difficult. For example, you might force three players to sit while sitting facing away from each other and with hands clasped.
Round Tables
Round tables is an excellent activity game for leaders and followers alike. What you do for this game largely depends on how many participants you have, but each round table should have a decent (and equal) amount of participants. For this game, if you don’t have an even number of participants, you may have to have someone sit out, as the event itself is timed.
To begin, you must designate one person as the leader at each table. You can draw straws or lots for this, or you can simply go around the table instead. Next, each table will have a list of tasks to complete, but only the leader knows what’s on that list. The leader also can’t participate in any of the functions! The leader must delegate each task to someone at their table and communicate effectively to make sure each job gets done.
This game has several benefits, chief among them being team-building, communication skills, delegation skills, and trust. The team members at the table, not knowing what’s on the task list, need to trust the leader to communicate with the team properly about what needs to get done. The team leader also needs to trust the team members to get the things done that they’re assigned.
There are many ways you can make this task more difficult. More jobs and more people at each table can both make this game more challenging. You can also throw in some curveballs, such as switching people between tables!
Chinese Puzzle
The Chinese puzzle game is one of the more challenging games for team members to play together! However, while this game is simple and easy to set up, you need a fair amount of participants to make it fun. Your participants also need to be reasonably comfortable in close proximity to one another for this game to work.
For this game to be fair, one person needs to sit out and “oversee” the game. This overseer will organize all of the participants so that their hands and arms all link together – hence the Chinese puzzle! Once the overseer sets everyone up, a different individual will try to disentangle everyone. It can be a group of several people working together, or just one person, though only one person doesn’t promote team-building as much.
Ideally, the people making up the puzzle shouldn’t be able to communicate with the participants at all. However, if you want to make this game more difficult, you can instruct the “puzzle pieces” to reattach themselves to the puzzle when the participants aren’t looking! This is a great way to test the people disentangling the problem and make them strategize even more.
Magic Carpet
“Magic Carpet” is a very entertaining team-building game that’s quite similar to “All Aboard” in its strategy. For this game, all team members must stand on a rug, blanket, towel, or another similar surface. They should have enough space to stand on it comfortably but without an excessive amount of space between them. Each person should be able to stand without touching their neighbor, but not much more space than that.
The object of this game is to have the team turn the “carpet” they’re standing on completely over without anyone falling off. If anyone steps off of the carpet, the game is over, and the team must begin again!
The magic carpet game is excellent for many different reasons. Some of them include:
- Variability for groups of different sizes
- Team-building
- Communication-building
- Trust-building
This activity also has variable difficulty levels based on how strict you make it. For example, you might forbid one group from using their hands at all – only their feet. Alternatively, you could crowd more people onto one smaller carpet, or you could ask that they flip the rug over more than once.
Concentration
Concentration is one of the greatest leadership games for strengthening bonds between team members. While you might have heard of “concentration” as a child, this version is somewhat different.
For this version of Concentration, first split your players into two different teams. Have them stand in two single-file lines facing each other. First, give the players in each line some time to look at each other – just the first person in each line for now. Between ten and thirty seconds should be plenty for this game, though less time is, of course, more difficult.
Next, give each team thirty seconds to a minute to disguise the first member of each line. They can do this by swapping clothes and accessories, changing hairstyles, and anything they can think of. Their job is to make as many subtle appearance changes in the first person in line as possible.
When time is up, each team needs to correctly identify as many changes in the first person in line as they can within a short time. Again, between ten and thirty seconds is ideal for this exercise. You can also change the game to the first two or three individuals in each line to ramp up the difficulty level!