Home » Leadership » Fun Leadership Training Activities You Can Try At Work
True leaders inspire change in people, and can guide their workforce into the promised land. Their influence extends beyond their presence, but is cemented through their actions.
Too often leaders focus more on massaging their own ego than the practical ways they can improve team performance. When you execute what your company needs, you’ll embody the strength and commitment that’s vital for success.
Leadership training activities are a great way to cultivate proactive leaders, building confidence in those who show promise. They usually involve situations where staff can exercise and develop the skills they need to be successful, having established clear objectives.
Whether you integrate activities with everyday tasks, or coordinate separate events, you should always preference a structured approach, where participants can extract transferable elements and draw connections with the workplace.
Before we get to some leadership training activities, let’s first assess what makes a good leader, specifically the qualities that improve the capabilities of leaders:
Honesty
If you want to create an organizational culture that’s based on trust and respect, honesty is a top priority. Transparent communication with staff is vital, and you must be honest with them. Can you imagine the repercussions if staff discover you’ve lied about something? This will undermine your authority, while discouraging staff from working in the best interests of the company.
Communication
A great leader can get their point across clearly, while creating two-way communication channels. Listening and incorporating staff input is equally important to create a stable team, but you should be the communication driver.
Flexibility
It’s rare that things go according to plan, so it’s important to be readily responsible and adaptive. What defines your character is how you can respond to the unexpected, where resilience helps you grow as a leader. Change can be stressful, but being a change champion can help staff embrace your visions, providing you offer reassurance for flexible initiatives. Never panic, and focus on turning negative situations into good ones.
Confidence
A confident leader will inspire confidence in their team. It’s important to lead by example, leading a team who feel sure of themselves, with supreme confidence in their abilities. They will consequently be better positioned to succeed, where you promote a level of assurance that rubs off.
Commitment
Be committed to your role, and don’t be afraid to get stuck in. Your team should appreciate you’re willing to do whatever it takes to be successful. If you’re perceived as somebody who views themselves on a higher echelon, a disconnect will be forged. Inspire your team by working with them, rather than being the boss on the sidelines who doesn’t get involved. Get off your pedestal and onto the frontline!
Fun Leadership Training Activities
In support of leadership development, engaging staff with fun games is a great way to increase the effectiveness of your initiatives. Whether you merely gain inspiration from these fun leadership training activities, or fully commit to them, you’ll engage participants with an element of fun, detracting from the mundane nature of training.
Minefield
This involves assembling a group of people, with one participant blindfolded. You then introduce a minefield of obstacles which can be overcome with specified communication. For example, participants might only be able to use words like right, forward, left, and backwards.
It is the team’s responsibility to guide the blindfolded individual through a minefield, as a great way of developing trust and cultivating leadership. This activity can be coordinated outdoors, or in a regular office space.
Icebreaker
As the name suggests, this activity is great for breaking the tension in a room. Participants are encouraged to contribute to discussions, and are given an opportunity to connect with each other.
This involves devising a series of questions which encourage people to interact, and perhaps share some interesting characteristics and attributes. When questions are posed, participants need to locate people who match the criteria in question.
The person with the most correct answers is the winner, and the prospect of victory can encourage people to get stuck in. What’s most important however, is the interpersonal and communication skills which are promoted throughout.
Which Leaders Do You Admire?
Divide participants into groups, and discuss leaders they admire. This is a great way to brainstorm desirable leadership qualities, which prospective leaders can aspire to achieve.
Round Tables
Set up four tables, where each has a different task designated to it. Each should have separate steps which can be delegated accordingly, alongside the selection of a team leader who communicates their vision. Each table must complete their tasks as quick as possible, and leaders will have an opportunity to learn skills they can directly apply in future.
Tallest Tower
Collect various everyday items and have participants use their creativity to build the highest tower possible. This is a great problem solving activity, which also helps develop collaboration. When observing this activity, a natural leader will emerge with each team, who might just become your future leader.
Zoom
Participants are given a set of photographs, and must reassemble them to create a unified story. Though pictures will be totally random, there is potential for them to be collated to tell a story. By working together, teams should craft the original story in sequential order, engaging in an activity which encourages patience, tolerance, and communication.
