Top Leadership Training Activities and Exercises

To help you learn the skills that are essential to becoming an effective and efficient
leader, we've collected the top five (5) leadership training activities available to date. Some of
these can be completed alone while others should be completed with the help and participation of
others. These activities are separated into four (4) categories: Establishing, Organizing,
Facilitating, and Exploring. Each of these categories contains a variety of exercises and events
that you should consider attempting to maximize your leadership capabilities.
1. Exploration - Most of the activities in this category involve reflection and introspection.
Take some time to look back and see how far you have come in your leadership training.
For this category, the best exercise to explore is the Reality Check exercise. This exercise
is a great way to help you look back over your abilities and determine where you need to
improve.
It can easily be done individually or in a group, though the impact is greater when you are
able to compare your calculations with that of other aspiring leaders.
2. Establishing - The next category of top leadership training exercises involves
establishing. You are, quite literally, the cornerstone of your team, and you will be
expected to establish things, like project guidelines, policies, and obtain fundraisers,
grants, or sponsorships where applicable.
This exercise is something that will, unfortunately, only work well in a classroom
because it requires making a presentation at the end of the exercise to be most effective.
Individually, create an outline for a project of your choice. (Instructors: If this is too
broad, you could consider assigning projects to individuals or groups.) This could be
anything from building a website to constructing a building. This outline should include
the following things:

 Projected Start and End Date

 How many team members will be required to complete the project?
 What, if any, specializations will be required, i.e., carpentry, electrical, programming,
etc.?
 A detailed, step-by-step outline of the things that will be required to complete the project.
 If your project involves construction, for example, make sure you include all the permits
that must be obtained.
At this point you should have a pretty good idea of what your project is going to entail. Now
the real assignment begins. Write a detailed budget for your project. Include information, like
whether you're going to be seeking private investors or applying for grants, or sponsorships. If
you do any of these, be sure you include your grant application or scholarship form. Once you've
completed your budget and project, it's time to present it to the class. From there, your classmates
will get to offer feedback and ultimately, to vote on whether your project should be approved.
This exercise is designed to foster attention to detail, confidence, and your ability to inspire
others. You need to make your classmates want to support this project.
This exercise works best in small groups though larger groups foster a sense of competition.

The exercise: Plan a company retreat.

 A company retreat is a great way to foster team-building and bring a team closer together.
The idea is to get you away from the hustle and bustle of the office while still keeping the team in
the forefront of everyone's mind. These are perfect for trust exercises, brainstorming sessions, and
new collaborations that may never have been found if you stayed in the office.
For this exercise, you need to plan your ideal company retreat. Choose a location, and
determine the following:

 How many team members can attend the retreat at any given time?
 How much will the retreat cost per member?
 What will the schedule look like? How many events and team building exercises will you
be scheduling per day?
 How will meals be handled?
 Will there be a no-electronics or no-outside-contact policy?
 What is the ultimate goal of this retreat?
Once you've completed your project, present it to the class. Again, you will be expected to
inspire your classmates, as well as show off your organizational skills. This will enable you to
receive feedback on your idea, as well as help you work on your listening skills. Be ready to
answer any questions that may arise. (Instructors: Want to give this project an extra kick? Offer
an incentive: Students get to vote, and the retreat plan with the most votes becomes an actual
event!)
3. Facilitating - This is an exercise that can be done in a business or classroom setting.
Make and implement a plan to facilitate a fun and informative team-building exercise
within your classroom, office, or building. This will require all of your skills as a leader,
and many skills you may not have realized yet.
Step 1: Pick An Exercise. Everyone is familiar with the Trust Fall and some other commonly
used trust exercises. While this can be a good standby, try to find something more unique or more
likely to get people to participate.
Step 2: Pick a Time. If you're doing this in a business setting, then this will need to be cleared
with the other team leaders, but in a classroom setting it's easy to just assign time slots based on
the length of time needed for each exercise.
Step 3: Time to implement! This will require all of your communication skills, as well as your
ability to inspire people, especially if you're doing an exercise that could potentially end in injury
if done improperly, like the Trust Fall. No one wants to have a concussion on their hands!
Step 4: Feedback. This is essential. Talk to your team members and the other participants in your
exercise. Get feedback on your facilitating skills and on the event in general. Make sure you use
this feedback to help improve any future events that you may be planning. Trust You will not be
able to create an effective team without trust. Your team members need to be able to trust you,
and they need to be able to trust each other. With that in mind, you should have at least one good
and unique team building and trust exercise that you can fall back on when things get rocky. The
“Helium Stick” activity can.
be a great activity for any group. All you need for this activity is an
aluminum tent pole. Line your team members up in two parallel lines
so they are standing and facing one another. Instruct them to hold their
hands out at waist height with only their two index fingers extended.
Place the aluminum pole on top of their outstretched index fingers.
This is where it gets fun. Your team must lower the pole to the ground
without anyone losing contact with it. If someone loses his or her
section of the tent pole, the entire team has to start over.
Communication is the key for this activity. Everyone needs to
move slowly, steadily, and at the same time. This is one activity that, as
a leader, you should be a part of. Find someone else to act as facilitator.
This can help to cement your position as team leader, as well
as foster trust, communication, and collaboration between you and
your team members. Keep in mind that this is not
, by any means, a
definitive list of all the things you will need to know to become an
effective leader. Don't take this as leadership gospel. Instead, use these
suggestions as a foundation to build upon.