Leadership Activities for Teens (List)

This blog mentions leadership activities for teens.

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.

Before we move on to leadership activities for teens, let’s have an overview of what leadership skills are actually. 

What is Leadership and Leadership Skills?

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 teens, leadership means self-leadership.

It means to be able to develop oneself as an independent, autonomous, and confident being.

It means to be able to make meaningful, good, and non-judgmental decisions and so forth.

Hence we can conclude that youth leadership is the process by which teens develop themselves. Leadership holds great importance.

It helps teens in their near future in various areas of life including family, social circle, career, personal development, and so on.

Leadership skills are the skills possessed by leaders.

These 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 Teens

The following is a list of leadership activities for teens. These leadership activities are very beneficial for teens.

These activities are fun and engaging games that help teens to develop self-awareness, co-ordination, self-compassion,  kindness, calmness, alertness, and other leadership skills.

These activities are really good for enhancing the problem-solving skills of teenagers. 

Leadership activities help develop leadership skills that enable teens to guide their group members to complete a task effectively.

Teens learn how to utilize resources skilfully, listen, and coordinate with group members and practice their problem-solving skills for effective conflict resolution.

1. Minefield

Minefield very interesting activity that help teens develop leadership skills. This game requires a total of 60 minutes.

This game is best performed with large groups. For this activity, the teens are supposed to examine a minefield cautiously, without stepping on mines.

Mines are located on specific positions in the field which the group members have to memorize.

The group members can divide the total field to easily remember the mines in each part. If they step on the mine, they have to go back to the start line and start the game again.

For this activity, the group members have to plan together how to cross the minefield without stepping on the mines.

While playing the game, the rest of the group members are supposed to stay quiet. 

This game is very interesting and effective in enhancing the problem-solving skills of teens.

It promotes teamwork and improves the memory of teens. The activity also develops cooperation and effective communication between group members.

2. Electric Fence

An electric fence is another interesting game that helps develop leadership qualities in teenagers. This game takes just 30 minutes.

The group size required for this game is from 5 to 15.

For this activity, the group members have to work together, rely on each other, trust each other, and cross the electric fence without touching the fence line.

This game promotes teamwork and builds trust between group members.

3. Incoming Tide Survival

Incoming tidal survive is a very engaging game that can be played by groups with 8 to 16 members.

This game takes a total of 45 minutes. For this activity, the group members have to suppose that they are stranded on a beach.

The group members have to work together to collect resources and use them to make a structure that would help them escape from that beach. 

This game is very helpful for enhancing the creative thinking of individuals.

The game promotes problem-solving skills, coordination, effective communication skills between group members.

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4. Leaders Are, Can, and Think

Leaders are, can, and think it’s a very brief and interesting game that helps teens develop leadership skills.

For this activity, teenagers are asked to think of the leaders and write down the characteristics of leaders, abilities of leaders, and top beliefs of leaders.

Then, based on these answers, the teenagers are asked to answer some more questions given to them below the table. 

This activity is very interesting for helping teens acknowledge the characteristics, abilities, and beliefs of leaders.

To know more about this activity, click here.

5. 4 Ways leaders approach tasks: Leaders Motivation

4 ways leaders approach tasks is another amazing activity that helps teenagers acknowledge the four different leadership attitudes.

This activity help individuals learn how keeping in view the desires of members and adopting a particular attitude can affect leadership. 

This activity mentions some questions related to leadership attitude.

This gives teenagers a chance to engage in skeptical thinking to learn the characteristics, abilities, and duties of leaders.

The worksheet can be accessed from here.

6. The Human Knot

For this activity, all the group members have to stand in a circle and put their hands in the middle of the circle.

After this, they have to reach out to the nearest hand, without looking whose hand it is.

In the same way, they have to hold another hand with their other hand. As a result of this, all the hands will be tangled.

The group members are supposed to detangle themselves with proper planning and effective communication with each other.

Once they have detangled themselves and arranged back in the form of a circle, the challenge is completed.

7. Silent Line Up

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.

8. Trust game

This activity is all about trust. The group members are supposed to arrange themselves in the form of a circle.

One of the group members will be blindfolded and asked to go to the center of the circle.

He is supposed to observe and explore the areas around him with the help of the guidance of his group members.

The group members of this person will take care of his safety, and the person has to trust them for this. All the participants will be given a chance to act as a guide and as been guided.

After this, individuals will be asked about their favorite role and why they liked this role.

This game teachers trust, interdependence, teamwork, and effective communication skills to teens.

Recommended Amazon Tools and Books

The following is a list of recommended amazon tools and books that would help you increase your knowledge about leadership and learn a variety of effective leadership skills for teens.

You can get these books and tools from the amazon store easily.

Just click your favorite book or tool and you will be redirected to the page from where you can access it. 

• Everyday Leadership: Attitudes and Actions for Respect and Success (A guidebook for teens) by Mariam G. MacGregor M.S. | Oct 31, 2006
• Everyday Leadership Cards: Writing and Discussion Prompts by Mariam G. MacGregor M.S. | Nov 1, 2009
• Teambuilding With Teens: Activities for Leadership, Decision Making, and Group Success by Mariam G. MacGregor M.S. | Nov 15, 2007
• Girls Resist!: A Guide to Activism, Leadership, and Starting a Revolution by KaeLyn Rich and Giulia Sagramola
• Inspiring Leadership in Teens: Group Activities to Foster Integrity, Responsibility, and Compassion (Book and CD) by Ric Stuecker  | Sep 10, 2010

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

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 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.

How do you teach youth leadership?

Leadership can be taught in various ways.

Some of the ways to teach leadership include teaching about confidence, being a good role model, taking part in youth engagement programs, teaching students to be organized, encouraging students to make the world a better place to live, teaching students to learn from their mistakes and failures, and allowing students to make their decisions by themselves.

How do you promote leadership in the classroom?

Leadership can be promoted in the classroom by putting students in charge, providing good examples to students, delivering lectures on leadership, involving students in extracurricular activities, giving students some personal space, and so forth. 

How do you describe a leader?

A leader is the one who gives directions to the group members towards the achievement of their common goals.

The leaders have good management skills due to which they guide people correctly towards their destination. 

This blog mentioned some of the most effective leadership activities for teens.

These leadership activities for teens are very helpful for teenagers 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 or at home easily to help teens develop leadership skills. 

We hope you would find these leadership activities for teens 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 

84 Leadership Activities, Building Games, and Exercises by Heather Craig (2020)

Building Activities For Teens: A Complete Guide BY LIZA (2016)

8 Team Building Activities & Games for Teenagers – Unicef Kid Power

5 TEAM-BUILDING ACTIVITIES FOR TEENS TO BUILD TRUST AND COOPERATION by Nobel Coaching (2017)

Amazon.com 

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