Top Activities For a Leadership Workshop

Conducting an effective leadership workshop can be a real challenge for a variety of reasons. Often, leaders attending the workshop are pre-occupied with issues that are hot at the office. Sometimes, leaders have an "attitude" about the need for any training at all. They might feel like they already know what to do. As with all adult learning experiences, they must not only be educational, but also engaging. Here are some activities that you might want to consider:

Games or exercises that teach a point. There are a variety of games that can be used to teach a point about teamwork, organizational skills, and communications. They can be found in a variety of workbooks or found on websites by searching the internet. The important point is that there must be a lesson that can be associated with the game. Simply playing games may be entertaining, but it will be a wasted opportunity to engage leaders unless there is a "teachable moment."

Application Development

Review assessments and personal reflection. Many leadership workshops include some type of assessment that participants take before they arrive. The workshop is an opportunity to discuss the results and how they can be applied. The participants might then be given an opportunity to reflect upon the discussion and their personal results so that they can have an action plan when they get back to the office.

Challenges and projects with after-action reviews. Another opportunity for teaching leadership is to organize the group into teams and assign them a project. This is one form of "action learning." The project can be a simple task or something more complicated, but one which challenges the team to work together to accomplish the assigned task. For example, one project that has been used in an executive Development program was to have a team build a playhouse made from a kit. The participants are given all the materials, the tools, and instructions, but they are left unto themselves to self-organize and get the job done within a specified period of time. At the end of the exercise, the team is debriefed to capture lessons learned using the technique pioneered in the military known as an after-action-review. The review consists of a facilitated discussion to understand what went well, what did not go well, and what lessons could be applied for the future.

Discuss and debrief case studies. A common technique used in business schools is a discussion built around a case study. The subject of the case study should be a relevant topic for the group. If the facilitator has time, he or she might be able to construct a case study from something that recently happened at the company for workshop participants who are all from the same organization. By making the subject relevant to the participants, the workshop will likely be more engaging than if it is simply based on some theoretical case that may or may not a direct relevance.

The key to effective leadership workshops is to make sure that they are really "workshops." They must be engaging and require active participation or "work" by the attendees. If they are simply lectures, then they will not be nearly as effective. Adult learners generally prefer activities which have a teachable moment or an "ah-ha" outcome. It is through the self-discovery process when lessons are learned in a way that they become more memorable. Memorable lessons are more likely to be applied, and Application of the learning is the best test of a successful workshop. Structure your next workshop around one of these action learning ideas.

Top Activities For a Leadership Workshop