[October 23, 2018] Training your leaders is crucial for taking your business to the next level and making sure things run smoothly. They are in charge of keeping everything under control so you need to invest in helping them develop the key skills to be great at what they do.
Games are an excellent tool for giving your leaders the proper kind of training. They are fun, it goes without saying, but there’s much more to them.
Take a look at the 5 major reasons why you should use games in leadership training.
Communication
Your leaders need to be great communicators. This skill is essential for their everyday communication with the team members, the clients, and their superiors.
Games are brilliant for practicing communication and learning how to develop a healthy relationship with everyone.
Use games in which the players need to:
- Work together to create a strategy
- Give information to one another quickly and clearly
- Be tolerant toward everyone and adapt to the team
Great games for practicing communication:
- – Pass the Hoop
- – Card Pieces
- – Fill in the Blanks
- – Minefield
Motivation
We can agree that motivation is the key to success, not only in business but in life in general. Your leaders have a tricky task in front of themselves: to motivate their team to work eagerly and enthusiastically.
Games can be great for facilitating motivation and inspiring your team. Use dynamic games in which:
- The players root for one another
- One player needs to get the team going
- The whole team needs to give it their best
Use games such as:
- – Twister
- – All types of puzzles
- – Games involving physical strength and skills
- – Blind polygon
Decision-Making
Being able to make a decision regardless of the situation is something your leaders need to nurture. They are often in charge of making the call when things get critical and people start panicking.
Games you use in this case are usually a bit more complex and require strategic thinking.
Make sure to check out games such as:
- – Lost at Sea
- – The Delphi Method
- – Form a Line
“Games can be a great way to practice decision-making and work on perfecting it. Even though it’s an imaginary situation, it’s still highly beneficial for the leaders” says the CEO at Pick Writers.
Getting to Know Each other
Every great leader knows their team members: their names, skills, qualities, weaknesses, strengths, and temperament.
Games help your leaders learn how to bond with people and bring your teams closer.
Here’s a couple of great ones:
- – Find Someone who
- – Leaders You Love
- – Extremes: Where do you stand?
Coping With Failure
The final layer of the importance of using games in leadership training is practicing to cope with failure.
After a team loses a game competition their leader needs to step up to:
- Congratulate the winner
- Praise the team effort
- Point out the lesson learned
- Bring the spirits up
Final thoughts
Games are not only about having fun. They are also about teaching your leaders how to work on improving themselves and be better at their job.
Make sure to turn your leadership training into a positive, engaging and valuable project for all the participants. Use the games to bring everyone on board and give them a rewarding experience.
Communication is one of the keys to successful leadership. Ms Savage identified it right away and offered solutions to improve upon it. Looking across any where that leadership is taught, this is one of the first things they say must be done well in order to be a good leader. Great article. thanks.
Communication and motivation … two sides of the same coin.
Good point Eric and one that Ms. Savage did not overlook. We need more of these types of articles. Helps change things up a little. Just like in football, it’s always a good thing to change up the plays to keep the other team wondering what you will do next.
Eric, thank you so much 🙂
Hi Kristin. Do you have a twitter account or elsewhere we can go to read more of your articles? Thanks for responding.
Thank you for a helpful article, Ms. Savage.
… and the links she provided are also very helpful.
We’re getting a pretty good run of guest bloggers here at Gen. Satterfield’s leadership blog. Well done!
I think your key idea is that gameplay provides motivation for those who lack internal motivation. Young leaders are particularly susceptible to losing focus. If there is one thing the young have, it is an interest in games. This has been a trait of the young since the beginning of time. Let’s use it to leverage better leadership. Thanks Kristin.
I like the whole concept of game playing to improve leadership training. New twist on game theory.
Hey, Kristin Savage … great article and very informative. Thank you.
I agree. 🙂 🙂 🙂
Me too. I enjoyed her writing style too. Not too complex and easy to follow.
Yes, very informative.
Hi Janna, thank you so much! 🙂