In every organization, whether it’s small or big, there’re some requirements to achieve a goal. And the most important of those requirements is building a successful team. There’s no doubt that human resources are the best kind of capital for an organization. But that resource provides the best result when used in a coordinated way. And that’s what a leader must do. Being a good leader doesn’t only mean that having good personal leadership characteristics is enough. A leader or a manager is nothing without a good team because the team’s performance reflects the skills of a leader. And to make a good team, a leader has to initiate several activities to stimulate and develop skills of the team to achieve the goal smoothly.
Why Are Leadership Activities Important?
Today’s organizations are no longer about only work and work. People now see their workplaces with a different point of view. Workplaces now have become an important place of life where people doesn’t only focus on earning money but also improve themselves. But it’s not easy as nowadays workplaces are more versatile than ever. Even the goals and ways of doing work are continually changing on each new project. It gets difficult to cope with different kinds of people with different company culture. Members of a team struggle to cope-up with all these. That’s why leadership exercises and activities are essential as it helps the team to get comfortable and makes them enthusiastic toward their work and goal. It improves relationship among each other as well.
Top Leadership Activities to Stimulate and Develop the Skills of Your Team
There’s no need to think that leadership group activities have to be formal or boring. There’re many funny ways to these things which are organized yet useful. Here’re some top leadership activities examples that get followed by many organizations around the world. These can also be called leadership building activities because you help to build new leaders through these activities.
Start with Ice-Breaking in Leadership Group Activities
It’s always necessary to initiate an ice-breaking session among the members of a team. It’s more like getting to know each other. Tell your employees to introduce themselves one-by-one. It’s not mandatory to share formal information only. They can share their personal stuff as well. It helps to create a warm environment within the team. It also clears the air filled with hesitation, confusion and uncertainty.
Build Mutual Trust and Respect as a Leadership Exercise in Your Team
As a leader, you have to ensure that there are mutual trust and respect among the team members. Because in a team people with different age, gender, race, color etc. are present. It sometimes creates a conflicting situation. But any disrespectful or disbelieving behavior isn’t acceptable. That’s why if possible, try to proceed with cross-teams so that they get to know each other and spent more time to improve the relationship with each other.
Survival Leadership Activities
It’s necessary to keep fueling the critical thinking and creativity mindset of the team members. Divide the team into several small groups and give them a hypothetical situation with twelve supplies. Now tell them to choose only five supplies among those to solve the problem. It brings out the creativity among employees and shows how much mental strength they have to face and solve critical situations.
Leaders You Admire
Again divide your team into a few sub-teams, and tell each group to discuss about the leaders they admire. Instruct them to come with a mutual choice of a leader from each team because we all have a role model whom we admire. And this process tells the leadership traits or qualities the members of an organization actually expects from their leader. Also, it shows which team members have similarities among themselves. It helps to get an idea of how to direct them in the future to get the best output.
Round Table Discussion
Here you can divide the team into small teams or keep the whole team to start the round table discussion. As a leader here, your duties are only to instruct them, give them problems to solve and listen. You won’t interrupt until the conversation gets messy. Each member will present their solution to the issues and discuss. After the discussion, they’ve to come with one solution. This kind of activity reveals how much respect and mutual understanding the members have among them to reach toward one common agreement.
What if
This activity is more of a one-to-one thing. Here you invite each member and ask them about anything. The questions can be, what if we lose a lucrative deal because of you. Or what if we get some serious accusation against you, or what if I give promotion to someone else instead of you etc. These kinds of sudden question help to get an idea of the wittiness and instant reaction of an employee. It helps the leader to set the tasks according to the capacity of members so that they can work comfortably.
30-Second Story
In this activity, the leader will instruct each of the members to think about a life lesson or any situation of their life. After giving them some time to think, now you’ve to instruct them to tell their story within 30 seconds. They won’t have to narrate the whole situation but only the actual message that represents the full story. It helps to bring out and practice the skill of capturing the main point of something so that employees can master the skill of presenting something smartly instead of exaggerating.
Turn Feedback Into Learning Opportunities to Build New Leaders
Each member of your team expects feed-backs from the leader either individually or the whole team. But feed-backs work better when you make it interesting. Don’t make feedback session only about giving advises. Turn it into a learning opportunity so that employees not only acknowledges their mistakes but also gets the idea of how to improve. It keeps them active and doesn’t let them to give-up.
Bottom Line
Being a leader isn’t easy. Your employees, either directly or indirectly expect a lot from you. Just giving orders frequently doesn’t make you a good leader. You have to know your team and keep their enthusiasm level higher. Make them believe that in every success and failure, you all will take the credit. Also, make sure to sharpen their skills and ability to bring out the best from them.
Related
- Leadership Qualities – Style, Skills, and Traits of Ginni Rometty
- Leadership Qualities – Styles, Traits, and Skills of Ray Kroc
- Leadership Qualities – Style, Traits, and Skills of Nelson Mandela
References
- https://www.deputy.com/blog/6-impactful-leadership-activities-to-try-at-work
- https://www.edgepointlearning.com/blog/leadership-training-activities-for-employees/
- https://positivepsychology.com/leadership-activities/
- https://www.thebalancecareers.com/developing-your-employees-2275869
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