Leadership Activities: Improve Your Skills and Abilities

Leadership activities are activities that are aimed at improving your own personal abilities and skills. Leadership activities include processes that can be used to improve leadership abilities on an individual basis or processes that can be used within a group setting to create awareness and improvement of the leadership skills of the members within the group.

Every career path at some stage will require you to display effective leadership skills irrespective of what job you may have or what industry you may be in. Although leadership skills come naturally to some people, contrary to popular belief, leadership skills can also be learnt or taught. By investing in a course on leadership, you can improve your chances of rising up the corporate ladder.

There are numerous courses that deal with developing leadership abilities. Welch Way: Leadership in Action is a course offered by Jack Welch, one of the most successful business leaders of our time. Learning leadership from a recognized leader can help you to understand the key elements of leadership and how to apply these elements within your own working environment.

There are also lots of leadership seminars and courses that teach the art of leadership through activities. According to Forbes magazine, qualities that make a great leader include honesty, the ability to delegate, communication, a good sense of humor, confidence, commitment, creativity and an ability to inspire others.

How to use leadership activities to discover your strengths

Creating good leadership skills and developing your leadership potential may seem intimidating at first, but the truth is that all of us possess leadership skills and abilities. If you take a course to discover and maximize your strengths, you will have a great starting point to know which skills you already possess and which skills you can develop to make yourself a better leader.

Activities that will help you to identify your strengths include personal assessment activities.

Make a list of the things that you enjoy that come naturally to you. Try to make a note of what gives you energy and what you love doing. Ask friends and family for their input on what you do well. Once you have a list, try to identify which of the strengths and skills you have on your list are leadership based skills and then find ways of improving those aspects.

Leadership activities to improve communication

Communication is one of the keys to good leadership and efficient management. A good leader must be able to communicate effectively to be able to gather the information they need to make decisions. They must also be able to communicate instructions to the group they are leading.

Good communication is based on the ability to listen effectively as well as being able to convey your message effectively. Listening entails not just hearing what is being said, but actually understanding what the other person is saying both verbally and nonverbally. The art of listening includes understanding where the other person is coming from, so to speak.

Tips to improve your listening skills include making sure you have the time to listen. Actively listening to what is being said without planning your own responses to what is being said. Trying to place yourself in the speaker’s shoes to really understand what they are saying.

There are a number of leadership activities that can be used in a group setting to help you to improve your communication skills. Charades is one of the most popular leadership games to help you improve your communication skills and also a great leadership activity to try within a group setting.

Another great communication activity that you can use to improve your leadership abilities within a group setting is to play the human ice-breaker game. The game is based on ten or fifteen general personal questions. Questions like, who wears contact lenses? Who drives a red car? At the start of the session, each member of the group is given the list of questions and they all have a certain amount of time to get as many answers to the questions as possible. This exercise is a great ice-breaker, it gives everyone in the group a change to get to know one another and also opens up lines of communication within the group.

Communication is not only a key to good leadership but is also an essential life skill. A course like Communication Skills: Improve Your Skills in 1 Day from udemy will help you to improve your communication skills.

Leadership activities to improve team building and teamwork

A good leader must be able to inspire their team. A good leader also knows how to build a great team. Part of building a motivated team includes being able to recognize the strengths of others and harness those strengths for the good of the team. Other key elements of building a good team is being able to create a feeling of trust and communication within the team. A good leader must be able to create communication channels within the team to allow the team to agree on goals and strategies. A good leader must also be able to create an environment of trust to allow team members to feel comfortable to communicate their ideas.

There are a number of leadership games and activities that enhance teamwork and help team building. Games that are often used entail creating situations that require teamwork to resolve. There are also courses that will teach you how to build high-performing teams in a day.

Leadership activities that teach the art of delegation

Once you know your skills as a leader and you have been able to pinpoint your team members’ skills and abilities, then a good leader must be able to delegate tasks. The art of delegation is knowing what tasks can be delegated, to what extent they can be delegated and also how to recognize which team member is best suited for the job. Successful delegation depends on communication and responsibility.

How a course in leadership can change your life

Most people think of leadership in large global terms but in reality we are all leaders within our own lives. Investing in a course on leadership is an investment in your skills and abilities as a person. Think about the aspects of your daily life. Did you tell your kids to clean their rooms? Did you ask your husband to stop off for a few things on the way home? Were you in charge of arranging the lunch menu at work this week? Believe it or not these are the situations that place you in a leadership role on a daily basis. Being able to lead effectively is crucial in everyday life and a course in leadership is an investment in you own ability to efficiently and effectively manage your own life on a daily basis.