Effective leadership activities
General aim:
This is an activity for the development of leadership skills, which offers the leaders a self-assessment framework.
Subobjectives:
- To track the skills, attributes and attitudes that an effective leader should have
- To provide self-evaluation of the leader
- To translate the self-evaluation into new personal goals Participants: leader, team members
Duration: 30 min.+
Materials: Paper (with pizza drawing)
FIGURE 2: EXAMPLE OF LEADERSHIP PIZZA. ADAPTED
FROM: LEADERSHIP PIZZA | SESSIONLAB
Step 1: Present the model of Leadership Pizza: A self-evaluation tool in which every participant names every slice of a pizza (drown in a piece of paper) with skills and attitudes they think a leader should gain, in order to be effective.
Step 2: Present an example of leadership pizza and encourage them to think the skills each one thinks are of great importance, from their point of view.
Step 3: Set a time limit and ask the participants to list the most important leadership skills and qualities in their opinion and then name each slice of the pizza with those skills.
Step 4: Ask the participants to share their drawings with the group and justify why they chose those labels and then track common beliefs among the participants about the characteristics of a good leader.
Step 5: Now is the time for the leader to evaluate himself/herself based on the common characteristics that the team had identified in Step 4 (on a scale from 1 to 10). The results of the self- assessment should be the baseline for the leaders to define their own goals.
General aim:
- To support democratic decision making
- To show your team members that you take their opinion into consideration
Subobjectives:
- To promote brainstorming in your group and prioritize the ideas
- To assess a group of possible ideas.
Participants: leader, team members
Duration: 30 min.
Materials: Post-its, pens
Step 1: The leader informs the team members about the issue they are going to discuss, which needs quick decision-making and the team members write down their ideas in a post-it and put all the ideas on a wall. Let the participants group similar ideas and delete those that are repeated.
Run through every idea and make clarifications, until all the options are clear to all the participants.
Step 2: The participants can now show their preference for specific ideas, by making dots with a marker.
(Each participant has 5 dots to share, all five of which can be placed on one idea or on different ones).
Step 3: After all participants have voted, choose the most popular ideas. You can discuss the prioritization (most popular – less popular ideas) and define the steps that will follow.
Notes: Be aware not to be affected by votes already set ("bandwagon effect")
Adapted from Dotmocracy | SessionLab
Team building activities
FIGURE 3: TRUST BATTERY. ADOPTED FROM
HTTPS://WWW.SESSIONLAB.COM/METHODS/TRUST-BATTERY
In every collaboration among partners, the ‘trust battery’ (the level of trust or ‘emotional credit’ the one has for the other) either grows or discharges, depending on the person’s reliability and social interaction skills.
General aim:
- To raise awareness of the level of trust team members share
- Το encourage all parties involved to identify which workplace relationships need improvement.
Subobjectives:
- To give the leader and the team members an opportunity to think about the ‘trust battery’ they have for each person in the team
- To promote focusing on activities that could reload discharged confidence batteries
- To improve working relations and resolve possible conflicts
Participants: leader, team members
Duration: approx. 1 hour
Materials: Trust Battery Worksheets
Step 1: Explain to the team members the concept of ‘trust battery’.
Step 2: Distribute the trust battery worksheets to the team members and instruct them to write their colleagues’ names.
Step 3: Advise the participants to complete the trust battery worksheets based on their past interactions with this person: How much trust do you have for this person?
Step 4: Encourage participants to reflect on how they can improve their relationships with coworkers in case the trust battery is depleted.
Step 5: Contemplate on the exercise by asking the questions below:
- What factors made you rank certain colleagues' trust battery lower than others?
- Are there any relationships that you realize there is a discrepancy in the level of trust between you and the other individual?
- What actions can be taken to improve a low trust battery? - As a leader or colleague, what actions can you take in order to support your colleagues in recharging their trust batteries?
Alternatives:
Trust Battery can be utilized for individual use to identify the relationships requiring special attention.
It can also be implemented in a group, where group members exchange evaluations in pairs. In order for the practice to be effective, it is vital to have team members who are willing to give and receive candid and constructive feedback, and the leader should be able to deal with any potential conflicts that may arise (https://www.sessionlab.com/methods/trust-battery).
- MAKING LIST OF CLEAR RESPONSIBILITIES AND ROLES OF TEAM MEMBERS
General aim:
To enhance the collaboration between the team members and increase the effectiveness of the team
Subobjectives:
- To encourage team members to define their specific roles and responsibilities.
- To give them the opportunity to express the expectations that they hold of one another
- To identify gaps that need to be filled or changes that need to be made.
Participants: All team members
Duration: 90 minutes
Materials: whiteboard, markers, sticky notes, timer
Step 1: Preparation
Draw four columns on the whiteboard (see figure 4), Role
Responsibilities (what I think)
Responsibilities (what others think)
Unassigned responsibilities
FIGURE 4: EXAMPLE OF THE DRAWN COLUMNS RELATED TO ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES RETRIEVED FROM:
HTTPS://KNOWLEDGE.HYPERISLAND.COM/HUBFS/COURSES/LTDA/WEBINAR%20SLIDES/LTD A%20202002/LTDA%20202004/ROLES%20&%20RESPONSIBILITIES%20-%20IMAGE.PNG
Step 2: Identify roles
Each team member has to write down their role on the first column of the whiteboard.
Step 3: Identify your responsibilities
Ask each person to think the top 3-5 responsibilities they have and write each one on a sticky note. Then, place the sticky notes on the second column of the board from the most important at the top to the least important at the bottom.
Step 4: Identify teammates responsibilities
Ask each person to write on sticky notes the top 1-2 responsibilities that they think each of the teammates has and place them on the third column of the whiteboard. If you think of any responsibility that doesn’t match clearly a specific role, write it on sticky note and place it on the fourth column of the board.
Step 5: Discuss role responsibilities
Now is the time to review the notes that the team members have made. Each member presents his/her “what I think” notes for his/her role. Then each of the other members does the same with “what others think” notes that they’ve written.
The role owner either accepts or declines the different responsibilities that have emerged.
The statements that are declined are moved to the column of “unassigned responsibilities”.
Step 6: Review of unassigned responsibilities
Review the unassigned statements and discuss with the team whether each of them could be included in an existing role. If not, this may indicate that a new role needs to be created or an existing role to be redefined.
Step 7: Make a record of the list
Once the team has concluded on the roles and responsibilities, create a document and place it somewhere visible for everyone, like on the noticeboard.
You can make an agreement to review the document in a certain period of time or in case of new hiring or changes in roles.
Adapted from ATLASIAN TEAM PLAYBOOK
https://www.atlassian.com/team-playbook/plays/roles-and responsibilities
- CONCENTRIC CIRCLES (in interdisciplinary teams)
General aim:
To enhance communication in interdisciplinary teams.
Subobjectives:
- To experience the function of the team as an outside observer/to understand the dynamics of the team
- To experience different roles in the team conversation; as a watcher/listener and as a talker/active contributor
Participants: Interdisciplinary team members
Duration: Interdisciplinary team meeting (1,5-2 hours)
Materials: Handouts with topics of discussion
STEP 1: Preparation
Prior to the meeting, you have to decide on the topics that will be discussed in the interdisciplinary team meeting.
STEP 2: Make the setting
Create two circles of chairs, one inside the other, like concentric circles. Divide the team in two groups. The one group that will sit in the middle circle will be the ‘talkers’ while the other group in the outer circle will be the watchers/listeners.
STEP 3: Discussion of the topics
Participants in the inner circle begin to engage with the first topic of the handout. The ‘listeners’ make notes of the discussion.
STEP 4: Switch roles
When the ‘talkers’ come to a conclusion, the two groups switch circles. Now it’s time for the ‘listeners’ group to become the ‘talkers’ and discuss another topic and the ‘talkers’ group to become the ‘listeners’ and make notes.
The activity can continue until all topics are discussed or for pre arranged number of topics.
STEP 5: Debrief of the activity
The activity must end with a debrief of the meeting. Each participant can reflect on his/her experience as a ‘listener’ or a ‘talker’.
Adapted from https://positivepsychology.com/communication exercises-for-work/