Leadership Activities
Click on the links below for a pdf of activity guidelines and facilitation questions.
- Build a Pyramid (Focus Areas: communication, team work, and group dynamics)
- Building a Bridge (Focus Areas: teamwork, communication, and creative problem solving)
- Building a Tower (Focus Areas: communication, collaboration, and team strategy)
- Bull Ring Activity (Focus Areas: teamwork, group dynamics, communication, relationship to working with small groups, managing delicate information and tasks, facilitation of someone else’s learning process)
- Circle of Friends (Focus Areas: getting to know you, ice breaker)
- Coat of Arms Activity (Focus Areas: getting to know you, ice breaker)
- Domino Build (Focus Areas: developing trust within a team or group, communication, working with limited directions, paying attention to the details)
- Draw Like Me Activity (Focus Areas: communication and active listening)
- Getting to Know You BINGO (Focus Areas: getting to know you, ice breaker)
- Lego Activity – Building Replica (Focus Areas: communication, giving clear directions, team work, understanding roles and responsibilities)
- Mind Maze (Focus Areas: communication, team work, and group dynamics)
- Pipe Find (Focus Areas: communication and trust)
- Pop Fly (Focus Areas: communication, planning, decision making, and trial and error)
- Reach Out and Touch Someone (Focus Areas: team bonding, community building, and feel good)
Note: These resources have been adapted throughout the years. If you know the origin of any of these activities, please feel free to let us know so we can list the proper citation. A special thank you to the students, faculty, and staff who have contributed over the years.
Peer to Peer Workshop Requests
Workshops and training sessions typically presented by our Student Leadership Consultants:
- Ice Breakers and Energizers: Allows individuals, teams, and groups to get to know one another while participating in engaging and interactive activities
- Team Building: Challenges teams and groups to work together towards creating a more successful outcome.
- Communication: Allows for the practice of expressing thoughts and receiving information effectively.
- Leadership Styles and Philosophy: Identifies personal leadership styles through assessments and introduces new ways to approach leadership through student development and leadership theory.
- Goal Setting and Vision Development: Facilitates the process of envisioning future possibilities, discovering commitment and passion, and understanding the big picture
- Values Development: Allows for students to identify their personal ethical values, the ethical values of their teammates, and how they connect to their leadership style and presence.
- True Colors: Provides a model for understanding yourself based on your personality temperament. Enhances relationships – bringing out the best in us. Promotes responsibilities – respecting and building upon our strengths. Fosters understanding – learning to view the world through other lenses. Everyone has a combination – usually one s more dominant. Provides insights into different motivations, actions and communication approaches
Our Student Leadership Consultants are great for leadership training programs geared towards:
- University Transition Courses
- Student Organizations
- Resident Advisors
- Residence Halls
- Living Learning Communities
- Peer Leaders
*Please note that our Student Leadership Consultants typically facilitate presentations for the Fall Semester from early September-early December and early February-late April. This allows time for our students to prepare for upcoming final exams. If you require a presentation during the time they are unavailable, please request a program facilitated by our professional staff. Click here to request a program by our professional staff. Please note that we are typically unable to facilitate over the weekends. If possible, please try to select a date during the week, Monday-Friday.
Professional Staff Workshop Requests
To request a program, please click HERE. Please note that we require at least 2 weeks notice before presentations/facilitations and we only facilitate workshops for groups of 10 or more people.
Workshops and training sessions typically presented by our professional staff (recommended length listed, but can be discussed based on needs of the group):
- Leadership 101: What is Leadership? (1 to 1.5 hours)
- Attend this fun and interactive workshop to explore the complex topic of leadership. Who do you consider a leader? Does the term “leader” apply only to those in positions of power or others as well? What characteristics are people looking for in their leaders? Where do you stand on some leadership topics: Are there “born leaders”? Do you need charisma to be a good leader? We will explore how leadership relates to you and your life today.
- Lego Leadership (1.5 to 2 hours)
- This workshop provides a fun, interactive, and engaging way to look deeply at the way we communicate, work together in teams, manage conflict, and problem solve…all while using a creative mind approach. Participants will have a chance to work with Lego building blocks to reflect on their personal leadership stories, styles, and approaches, as well as working on team building and engagement. Participants will have an opportunity to play, imagine, create, build, communicate, collaborate, and have fun while engaging in this workshop.
- StrengthsFinder: Discovering and using your Top 5 (Gallup StrengthsFinder Assessment Instrument) (1.5 to 2 hours)
- This is the 1st of 2 Strengths workshops we offer. Attend this highly interactive workshop to learn about your top talents and strengths! You will also learn about the talents/strengths of others and how to have a team that balances difference strengths. By attending this session, you will better understand the strengths philosophy, identify and share your talents and strengths, see how your strengths may impact your choices and preferences and the choices and preferences of others, learn new ways to use your strengths in your job and your life.
- StrengthsFinder, Part 2: Leading Positive Change (1.5 to 2 hours) NEW
- This is the 2nd of 2 Strengths workshops that we offer. Participants in this “Part 2” workshop should already be familiar with their Top 5 from Gallup’s StrengthsFinder Assessment Instrument. This highly interactive workshop is designed to help participants learn more about using their Top 5 with purpose. This workshop takes a values-based approach to strengths. Participants will go through a series of activities and conversations in order to discover how they can help lead positive change with their Top 5.
- Emotionally Intelligent Leadership. More important than IQ? (EQ-i 2.0) (1.5 to 2 hours)
- What is Emotional Intelligence? Is it important in your daily life and in leadership? Attend this workshop to better understand your own levels of Emotional Intelligence, whether or not they can change and what it means for leadership and teamwork.
- What Would You Do? Making Tough Ethical Choices (1.5 to 2 hours)
- What questions would you consider when trying to decide what to do? Consider the following… Would you speak up if you heard someone that you do not know make an offensive ethnic slur? Would you tell a friend that you discovered that their partner is cheating on them if you are also friends with the person doing the cheating? How do you decide what’s best? During this interactive workshop you will engage in activities designed to uncover the pros and cons of the ethical approaches you are already using. You will also learn about other helpful approaches. Practical resources for making difficult choices will be provided.
- Myers Briggs Type Inventory: Understanding Preferences (MBTI Assessment Instrument) (1.5 to 2 hours)
- Discover how your preferences and psychological type affect who you are and how you work with others. Learn about psychological types and how teams can be more successful through an understanding of similarities and differences in cognition, communication and motivation.
- Civility & Leadership (1 hour)
- What is Civility and how can it be beneficial? What can you do to help create a culture of Civility? You will work with a small group to create skits to implement the 9 tools of Civility after watching a video scenario. Attend this interactive session to learn more about Civility and what you can do to make a difference.
- Team Building: It’s more than just “Breaking the Ice” (1 to 2 hours)
- Want to help your staff get to know each other better in fun and engaging ways? Looking for new ways to help build and motivate your team? Want to partner and collaborate more effectively? Join us for this workshop as we will interact with one another through a variety of simulation exercises that will touch on team building, communication, and leadership styles. Participants will not only walk away having had the opportunity to engage in a few simulation activities, but they will also walk away with a brief facilitation guide. This helpful guide can be used and adjusted for students and staff you work with.
- Problem Solving in groups and organizations (The Bridge Technique or Survival Challenge) (1 to 2 hours)
- Attend this fun and interactive session to see if you can survive the challenge of group problem solving. This workshop includes an interactive activity that will challenge you and help you see that a well-functioning group is much more than the sum of it’s parts.
- Values Based Leadership: Identifying your most essential values (1 to 1.5 hours)
- Ethical Lens Inventory (ELI Assessment Instrument) (1.5 hours)
- Leadership Models/Theory (1 to 2 hours)
- Mentorship (1 hour)
- Leadership Communication: Teamwork can make all the difference (1 hour)
- Facilitation Skills (1 hour)
- LEAD Overview and Training Opportunities (30 min to 1 hour)
- Customized Workshops
These opportunities are great for leadership training programs geared towards:
- University Life (UL) departments and offices
- Campus departments and offices
- Campus partners and stakeholders
- Faculty/Staff
- Students
- Learning more about yourself and working with others to help make positive change
Please note that we are typically unable to facilitate over the weekends. If possible, please try to select a date during the week, Monday-Friday. We typically facilitate presentations during the months of late August through early May. We have limited available during the summer months of June, July, and early August.