Leadership Activities for High School Students

This blog mentions leadership activities for high school students.

The blog aims to help teachers and parents select the best leadership activities for their students and children respectively, to help them develop leadership skills. 

What is Leadership?

Leadership is defined as the art of encouraging group members to move towards the common goal.

The definition of leadership may vary according to the settings.

For high school students, leadership is the act of creating goals, understanding the abilities of all group members, assigning tasks to group members according to their capabilities and motivating them to accomplish their common goals.

Leadership skills, the skills possessed by leaders, include patience, empathy, reliability, active listening, dependability, creativity, positivity, positive feedback, team building, flexibility, coordination and so forth.

These leadership skills make the leader an effective one and act as a source of motivation for others. 

Leadership Activities for High School Students 

Leadership activities hold great importance. These activities help students learn leadership skills which will benefit them in their future lives.

Leadership not only helps students become successful in their classrooms but also in their family settings, career, professional life and so on.

Therefore, it is very essential to engage high school students in leadership activities to help them learn leadership skills. 

These leadership activities help high school students learn to become strong and confident leaders.

This would help them in their college life or in their job settings.

Leadership activities are very helpful in teaching leadership skills to students, enable them to make wise decisions, helps them to think skeptically and become role models with a positive mindset.

So without any delay, let’s move on to some of the most effective leadership activities. 

1. Brainstorming For Change

For this activity, the students are divided into several groups consisting of four to five students.

Each group is provided with a problematic situation and they are supposed to think about it together to find resolutions to that conflict.

Once the list of conflict resolution is prepared, the group members, a class discussion takes place in which the whole class discusses and selects the best, feasible solution to the problem.

This activity is very effective for enabling high school students to resolve issues related to politics, society or economics.  

2. Leadership Characteristics

For this activity, the teacher divides the whole class into several groups, having two to three students in each group.

Each and every group is supposed to tell a story about a person whom they feel is an influential leader.

The group members are supposed to tell why you selected this personality and what characteristics of that personality showed that he possesses good leadership skills.

After this, the whole class will sum up all the leadership skills and display the list in the classroom.

This activity is very helpful for students to identify the characteristics of leaders. 

3. Blind Fold Leader Game

Blindfold leader team is another leadership activity that helps develop leadership skills in high school students.

In this activity, the teacher aligns all the students in a straight line and specifies a starting and ending point.

Then, the teacher blindfolds all the students at the starting point and asks the students to play their left hand on the left shoulder of the students standing in front of them.

Only the leader is without the blindfold, the rest of the group members have a blindfold on their eyes.

The leader will start moving towards the ending point when the teacher says “Go”.

The leader will guide his group members towards the ending point because he is the only one without a blindfold.

To make this game more difficult, the teacher can add obstacles between the starting and ending points to see how well the leader gives instruction to his group members and how will the group members understand those instructions.

Once the students should reach the finish line, the other person can take the lead.

4. Silence Classroom Leadership Game

Silence classroom leadership game is a very effective leadership game that helps teachers identify the leadership skills present in their students.

For this game, the teacher divides the class into two groups and positions them on two different sides of the classroom.

After this, the teacher gives instructions to each group such as to divide them on the basis of their birth dates or by asking them to arrange themselves in alphabetical order according to their last names.

The students are directed to complete the task assigned to them without speaking anything.

The students who possess leadership skills will not feel the need to speak and they will take the initiative to arrange their group members as per the task assigned to them.

The students are allowed to make hand movements or communicate with each other by writing on a paper.

The team who completes the task first will be the winner of this game.

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5. Buckets and Balls (Cohen, 2017)

In this game, the students are supposed to transfer the balls from one box to another box without using their hands.

Only one person will be allowed to use his hands and he will be called the ‘handler’.

The handler is supposed to stand behind the start line during the game. The team members are directed to take the balls to the handler without touching them with their hands.

Then the handler will transfer those balls into the empty box, placed at the start line.

The group members who touch the ball with their hands will be considered disqualified and will not be allowed to play the game further.

Each team will be given 5 minutes and the team which collects a greater number of balls will be the winning team.

6. Team Jigsaw (Cohen, 2017)

Team jigsaw is an activity in which the team members have to complete the Jigsaw puzzle within the time assigned to them.

The teacher divides the class into two groups.

Both the teams are supposed to complete the Jigsaw puzzle given to them within 20 to 30 minutes. At the beginning of the game, the group members will acknowledge that it is a group task and they have to do it together.

Later on, they will realize that some pieces of puzzles are missing and they have some additional pieces of puzzles that do not fit in the puzzle.

After this, the teams will communicate with each other to take help from them and in return help them in completing puzzles.

Soon they will realize that all of them were working as a group.

For this game, the teams are allowed to exchange the pieces of puzzles with each other only once.

7. ‘Sneak-a-peek’ (Cohen, 2017)

For this activity, the students are divided into two groups. Both the teams are supposed to make structures using Lego.

The structure should be complicated but must be able to replicate. It must be made sure that there is enough Lego to replicate the structure twice.

The structure is kept away from the sight of teams. Each player of the team is allowed to see the structure for only 10 seconds.

Then the player will go to their teams and explain to them how to make the structure in just 25 seconds.

After this, the teams will be given 1 minute to complete the structure.

After one minute the next team member will be called to see the structure for 10 seconds and the process will continue.

The team that built the structure correctly will be considered the winning team.

Recommended Books

The following are some books recommended for you. These books will help you identify leadership skills in you.

The books will aid in developing various leadership skills.

These books also mention several leadership activities that can be performed to enhance leadership qualities.

• The Leader in Me: How Schools and Parents Around the World Are Inspiring Greatness, One Child at a Time by Stephen R. Covey (2012)
• The Leadership Training Activity Book: 50 Exercises for Building Effective Leaders by Lois Borland Hart, ‎Lois B. Hart, ‎Charlotte S. Waisman (2005)
• Teambuilding with Teens: Activities for Leadership, Decision Making, & Group Success by Mariam G. MacGregor – 2007
• The Big Book of Leadership Games: Quick, Fun Activities to Improve Communication, Increase Productivity, and Bring Out the Best in Employees: Quick, Fun, … Bring Out the Best In You (Big Book Series) by Vasudha K. Deming
• Exploring Leadership, Facilitation and Activity Guide: For College Students Who Want to Make a Difference by Wendy Wagner and Daniel T. Ostick (2013)

How do you show leadership in school?

For showing leadership in school it is very important to gain experience, maintain good humor, be optimistic, learn from mistakes, be confident, consider strengths rather than weaknesses, be a people person and so forth.

What makes a great student leader?

A great student leader is one who has effective speaking and communication skills.

The one who is an active listener and communicates effectively with others.

What are some examples of leadership?

There are many examples of leadership.

Some examples of leadership include being patient, empathetic, active listener, reliable, creative, dependable and effective feedback giver.

How do you plan daily work activities for leadership?

You can plan daily work activities for leadership by following the below-mentioned steps: 

• Establish a vision or mission 
• Effective planning 
• Motivating subordinates 
• Evaluating results

What are the 7 leadership styles?

The seven types of leadership include autocratic leadership, charismatic leadership, transformational leadership, laissez-faire leadership, transactional leadership, supportive leadership, and democratic leadership

What are 5 qualities of a good leader?

There are many qualities of a good leader.

The top five qualities of leaders include clarity of speech, decisiveness, courage, passion, and humility.

This blog mentioned some of the most effective leadership activities for high school students.

These leadership activities for high school students are very helpful for students to learn leadership skills, teamwork, and coordination.

Leadership is very essential as it plays a very important part of an individual’s life.

Leadership not only helps students succeed in their school years but also benefits them in their future life in their family system, career or professional life.

The leadership activities mentioned in this blog are very effective, easy and engaging.

These activities can be held in classroom settings easily to help students develop leadership skills. 

We hope you would find these leadership activities for high school students interesting and useful.

You can engage your students or children in activities like these to sharpen their leadership skills and make them more competent.

If you have any queries or questions, let us know through your comments. We will be glad to assist you.  

References

Leadership Definition (What’s a Good Leader)

6 Key Leadership Skills and Definition and Examples | Indeed.com

Leadership Activities for High School Classrooms by Sabrina Stapleton (2018)

84 Leadership Activities, Building Games, and Exercises by Heather Craig

Google books

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