This article consists of 7 effective leadership exercises for students that allow them to boost their learning abilities and achieve long-term academic goals. Continue to read to discover these exercises!
Students’ personalities, attitudes, and values are shaped during their academic lives. Introducing leadership skills at this stage can help them not only achieve their educational goals but also achieve success in their personal lives. Therefore, they must practice leadership exercises to acquire these skills.
Leadership exercises for students are designed to cultivate effective communication, collaboration, problem-solving abilities, teamwork, and more. If you are eager to learn about these exercises, then this article is for you. Here, we’ll share some effective leadership exercises that boost students’ learning experience.
Read on and get to know what the leadership exercises are.
What are Leadership Exercises?
Leadership exercises include tasks and games designed to develop leadership skills, such as team management, conflict resolution, planning, effective communication, and critical thinking. These exercises offer a space to practice your leadership skills without fearing real-world consequences.
An assessment was conducted among 142 respondents, of which 66.7% of students have leadership competence but need to improve their skills, whereas 33.3% lacked these capabilities. However, polishing these skills is essential for students as it allows them to successfully perform their academic tasks, including assignment writing skills, preparing for a quiz, completing a group project, and more.
As you have learned what the leadership exercises are, now explore some of the best exercises that play a key role in boosting the learning experience of students.
List of Best Leadership Exercises for Students
No matter how fast we have moved in today’s advanced world, we always need some traditional leadership exercises for students. These activities are fun and foster self-awareness, collaboration, confidence, and critical thinking in them.
Get started with the below-mentioned leadership activities that play a significant role in cultivating leadership skills in students.
1. Minefield
Minefield aims to boost students’ communication skills. This activity encourages students to learn how to give instructions to others concisely, clearly, and effectively. In this game, one person wears a blindfold, and the other gives directions to pass through the course.
Below are some instructions on how to set up this activity.
- Choose an open space or empty room for this exercise. After choosing the space, scatter the different objects throughout the room; these objects will serve as ‘mines’. Also, mark a starting point and a finishing point.
- Divide the whole class into pairs.
- One partner will wear a blindfold, while the other will be the leader who gives directions.
- The leaders will guide him verbally, and he will not be allowed to enter the minefield.
2. Lego Building
This is the most effective leadership exercise for students. It teaches students how to work in a group and how to leverage their capabilities to accomplish a common goal.
The following are the steps that you must follow to conduct this exercise.
- Divide students into groups of 4-5 members.
- One group member will be designated as the leader, while the other members are his subordinates.
- The leader will give instructions to the other members to collect Lego parts and the only person who can complete the Lego building.
- This leader will assign tasks to each member, and every member must follow his instructions.
- The total time allowed for this activity is 5-10 minutes, and each team must complete it within that time.
3. Survival Leadership Activity
In this exercise, students are presented with a survival situation such as a plane crash, being lost in a desert, or a shipwreck. The teacher then asks them to grab the five most essential items for survival in this challenging situation. This activity improves students’ critical thinking and decision-making skills, which is ultimately helpful for them in every stage of life.
Follow the below steps to conduct this activity in a classroom.
- Divide the class into small crews.
- Create a scenario for their survival and set a limit for them to name the items that will make their survival possible.
- Each team will discuss and list the 5 essential items, which will boost their critical thinking, problem-solving, and communication skills under pressure.
- After selecting things, every team must explain why it chose these items.
4. What If
This exercise plays a key role in polishing students’ critical thinking and problem-solving skills. In this activity, teachers gather students in one place, give them a difficult hypothetical situation, and ask them to provide a solution to this problem. This activity will develop problem-solving skills, analytical thinking, and rational abilities.
Additionally, when the teacher asks them to present a solution for a difficult situation, it eventually improves their writing skills. Students can use these skills to complete different academic tasks, including essay writing, assignment writing, writing a research proposal, and more.
5. Community Bingo
Community bingo is the best exercise for raising students’ awareness of different leadership roles and styles. The core aim of this activity is to meet different leaders and learn about their principles and roles. This game doesn’t need to be played in groups; it assesses each individual’s qualities.
Here are steps for doing this leadership exercise.
- Each student is given a Bingo card with a limited-time mention on it. Within this time, he must achieve his Bingo task.
- Students have to schedule a meeting with their favourite community leader and request him to share his experience or some principles and note them down on paper.
- Additionally, each participant must take a photo with this leader or his business card as proof of this meeting.
- When participants met with the leaders and completed their bingo, they had to return their bingo cards to teachers and share their experiences with their classmates.
6. Marshmallow Mania
Marshmallow mania is one of the most fun leadership exercises for students. It polishes their skills and gives them an escape from their hectic schedule routine. The most interesting benefit of this activity is that students learn how to work in a team to achieve common goals.
Follow the below steps to conduct this fun activity in the classroom.
- Divide students into groups consisting of 5 or more members.
- Give some items, including scotch tape, uncooked spaghetti, string, and a marshmallow, to each group.
- Each team will be allocated some specific time to build a tower that doesn’t fall.
- It is a rule to place marshmallows at the top of this tower.
- You can break down the spaghetti into small pieces, but it is not allowed to cut the strings.
- Set a timer, and when it goes off, the team that built the largest tower will be the winner.
7. The Sixty Seconds Story Challenge
The 60-second story challenge is an effective leadership exercise for students as it teaches how to deliver concise and clear messages engagingly. This activity also allows students to build confidence in public speaking and learn how to refine their thoughts while speaking. Moreover, this exercise will boost their storytelling skills and assist them in their academic life in the future.
For this, teachers assign each student a different topic. This topic will be broad enough to allow them to use their creativity. Generally, the teacher gives students 60 seconds to think about the topics. Within this time, students prepare a story related to this topic. They can also add their experience to it. The best part of this activity is that the teacher can ask other students to write their reviews about each story.
Additionally, this will empower them to boost their cognitive and critical thinking skills. These skills can help them complete their writing tasks effectively. If they find these tasks hard, they can also approach top assignment writing companies in the UK to complete their academic documents.
Conclusion
Practising leadership exercises is imperative for students, especially during their education journey. These activities encourage students to improve their communication skills, cognitive abilities, logical reasoning, critical thinking abilities, and problem-solving skills. Additionally, they teach them how to work in a team to achieve a common goal.
In this article, we have mentioned the most effective leadership exercises for students. These activities include Minefield, Community Bingo, Lego Building, What If, Survival Leadership Challenge, Marshmallow Mania, and the 60-second story challenge. We hope that you will find the best leadership activity for you.
