leadership development exercises and games

leadership development exercises and games

The are various games and exercises on the free team building games section that work well for demonstrating, assessing and developing leadership. See particularly the 'leading or managing' exercise, which is a flexible activity for illustrating the differences between managing and leading. As regards leadership exercises for experiential development of leadership abilities, focus on the leadership challenge of leading and managing a team - the task itself is secondary - so virtually any team game is suitable provided you give each leader a team of four or more people to lead. The more people, the bigger the test of leadership. You do not need a complicated exercise to create a leadership challenge. The leadership challenge is produced by having to organise, plan and motivate a team of people. In fact, if the task is too complex it will obscure the team leadership issues, by distracting from or hampering leadership skills and qualities. For leadership development choose exercises that includes an enjoyable and achievable challenge - even very basic games like newspaper towers will be a good test of leadership if you create teams of four or more for the leader to lead. Use games that you feel will produce variety, fun and a mixture of activities. The round tables exercise is particularly suitable to test and develop leadership skills. Choose a mixture of exercises which encourage the leaders think about using a different approach, and different people's strengths, for each challenge.