Learning leadership skills from a young age can provide kids with an excellent head start in life. Even if they have personalities that are not automatically predisposed to leading other people, it can be extremely valuable to learn different leadership techniques to develop confidence and overall mental well being.
5 Simple Leadership Activities & Games for Kids:
We’re going to go through some of the best leadership activities for kids that you can easily replicate and teach. Before you know it, you’ll be swarming with the next generation of the world’s leaders!
Same or Different
Get your kids to sit in a circle and face each other. Choose one of them to go first. They should look around the circle and point out someone who they believe they look similar to. Once they’ve chosen someone, have them explain what their similarities are. Afterwards, they should talk about differences. The key is to get your kids to understand that they will always enjoy what’s in common with each other, even though they have differences too. They key is to normalize this. This will bolster your kids confidence in themselves physically and mentally.
Leader of the Blindfolded
Round your kids up into a group and then choose one of them to step aside. Whoever is remaining has to be blindfolded. It is then up to the person who is removed from the group to guide the group of blindfolded kids across the room with clear and easy to understand commands. Time the process to see how long it takes, and encourage other kids to get involved and be the leader. You can create friendly competition by giving a prize to whoever gets their group across the quickest. Make sure everyone gets a turn at being a leader and experiment with different environments. This is a fantastic confidence builder for the leader as well as an awesome trust exercise.
The Listener
Split the room up into pairs and have each set of kids find somewhere private to sit. One person the group is to be designated “The Listener”. Stress the importance of this role heavily so they begin to understand what will be expected of them as a leader. Their job is to listen to the other person talk about themselves and take notes. The kid who is talking should be encouraged to talk about basic information such as where they are from, age, favorite activities etc. It is up to “The Listener” to listen carefully and note down this information. Once they’ve finished, it’s your job to quiz “The Listener” on the information they have found out about their partner. The more they’ve listened, the more information they will have. This is a great way of learning the invaluable management skill of listening to employees and people below you, to ensure a harmonious work environment. After they’ve finished, have them swap around and have the talker become “The Listener”.
This is Me!
As you will have figured by now, confidence is key to building up leadership skills in kids from an early age. One of the best activities to foster and unlock this type of confidence is called This is Me! It’s quite self-explanatory, the game is a celebration of the self. Get your kids to grab a piece of paper and draw themselves on it. Not only that, but encourage them to put things on there that they think help define their identities. This can be things such as zip codes to areas where they are from, or a cut out from a magazine of one of their favorite athletes or celebrities. Once they have finished creating this shrine to themselves, have them swap with other kids in the room and get them to compare differences and what they have in common. This is an instrumental technique in ensuring kids become comfortable in who they are and what they wish to represent.
Direct the Egg
Split your group of kids into two and give each side an egg. The aim of the game is to get them to ferry the egg across the room in the most interesting and creative way possible. Of course one technique could just simply be to pick up the egg and walk over the other side of designated area. But that’s not the type of activity that you should be encouraging. Allow the kids to appoint their own leader in this task and give them an appropriate amount of agency. Don’t restrict them from doing anything in particular unless of course it is a threat to health and safety. Analyze the ways in which they choose to move this egg across the room. How many people do they get involved? Are they making sure everybody is made to feel useful? As you can see, a wealth of leadership skills can be cultivated and blossom from this task.
Kids Leadership Final Thoughts
We hope you find the activities listed here to be helpful and engaging. Remember, some kids are more naturally talented when it comes to leadership skills than others. This gives them an advantage, but it’s still your job to encourage and foster these habits to ensure they are used properly. On the flip side, just because a kid isn’t showing natural leadership qualities doesn’t mean they can’t yet be molded into a great leader. That’s what these activities are here for after all. Have fun directing and encouraging the leaders of tomorrow!