15+ leadership Games to Play as a Team Building Activity at Work

If are you interested in knowing more about leadership games to play at work to build a strong team, then this article is for you. We’ve gathered all the information you require in this comprehensive resource to help you plan a productive team-building activity for your staff. 

leadership games

The activities you include in your game have a meaningful impact on its performance, regardless of whether you’re the founder of a cutting-edge new business or the HR manager for a significant company.

What are Leadership Games?

For managers, mentors, team leaders, and project managers, leadership games and activities can improve learning outcomes and engagement. You are more likely to learn and remember leadership abilities when you participate in enjoyable leadership games. 

Making connections with your coworkers and other professionals through leadership games and activities can improve your ability to function as a team in the future. We’ll go over a few entertaining leadership games and exercises in this article to help you hone your abilities.

Games for leadership provide you the chance to practice. They are a team or individual activities that provide you the chance to assess and develop your skills (and the skills of your team) in a safe environment.

These drills, which most sports teams use to mimic competitions, are quite similar to these exercises. You and your team can be well-prepared for any crisis by conducting these drills (leadership games).

Leadership Games for Team Building

Organizing leadership games to develop a team requires a different strategy than planning an event for a huge business or corporation. A small group of players with little to no equipment can play leadership games for team building

You can play the following common games with your team to build your team and improve the crucial leadership abilities required in the workplace:

1. Leadership Crests

Participants in the activity known as “leadership crests” are required to design leadership crests that are based on traditional family crests. 

It challenges participants to think about their leadership principles and how they relate to the goals of their work and their personal accomplishments. In order to share their crest with the rest of the group, they must also employ their communication abilities. 

To take part in the leadership crests activity, follow these instructions:

a. Create the shape of a crest and divide it into four halves.

b. Draw a representation of each category—leadership abilities, influential values, recent accomplishments, and workplace satisfaction—in a quadrant.

c. When your crest is finished, get up and show it to the others. Talk about what you drew in each quadrant and why it means anything to you.

 d. Then, discuss how your quadrants align with one another or, if they don’t, how you may make them more aligned.

2. Survival Leadership Exercises

Divide the participants into two teams and give them one of three possible survival scenarios: a shipwreck, a plane catastrophe, or being stranded in the desert. Then give them a list of things that might be useful in that circumstance.

Give the groups the task of selecting five objects that will help them survive. After the teams have chosen their objects, ask them to explain why they chose those particular items and how they would utilize them to get around the situation at hand.

This leadership exercise encourages critical, imaginative, and strategic thinking and the development of problem-solving abilities that may be applied to your company’s operations.

3. Human Knot Game

The game Human Knot is excellent for motivating your staff to cooperate to find a solution. To complete the challenge in the game, effective leadership and teamwork are required.

It is wonderful for problem-solving and communication because 6 or more players play for 5 to 10 minutes.

Players need to form a circle and face inwards while playing Human Knot. The next step is for each player to extend their right hand and make a handshake with the player to their left (players should not join hands with anybody to their immediate right or left). 

Finally, connect hands with a new partner while performing the identical motion with the left hand.

The goal of the game is to untie the knot without letting go of each other’s hands so that when it’s all said and done, the players will stand in a perfect circle with their hands intertwined. 

Players will need to maneuver through each other’s hands by turning, twisting, and passing through them while still keeping clear communication.

4. The Egg Drop

Egg Drop is one of the challenging and competitive leadership games that requires good collaboration and innovative ideas to win. Will the egg survive? Time to investigate…

They play it in teams, lasts for roughly 30 minutes, and is excellent for encouraging creativity, collaboration, and communication.

You’ll need cardboard, duct tape, a lot of straws, some way to enable a high drop, one raw egg per team, and a cloth to wipe up the mess in order to play this game.

Divide your players into equal teams and give them the items below to begin the game of egg drop, set a time restriction after that, and during that period, the teams must cooperate and use all available resources to shield their uncooked egg from the steep plummet.

After the time restriction has passed, gather the eggs from each and deliver them to the high drop. Then, one at a time, drop the eggs.

The team that’s egg doesn’t break after it hits the ground is the winner. The team that uses the fewest straws wins if over one team successfully shielded its egg.

leadership games

4. Icebreaker

Each participant must create five basic “icebreaker” questions for this activity, such as “Who is taller than six feet?”

When everyone has finished speaking, walk around the circle and let everyone ask their questions. How many people raise their hands? Count them. The round’s winner is the contestant with the most points.

For instance, if someone asked, “Who has blonde hair?” and three people raise their hands, giving three points.

This leadership exercise is excellent for reducing stress, fostering interpersonal communication, promoting conversation, and forging a sense of camaraderie among team members.

5. Office Debates

These are leadership games. A productive office setting depends on everyone knowing how to handle conflicts and differences of opinion. Office debates are a fantastic approach to help your staff members become better communicators and public speakers.

Gather your staff in a room appropriate for making presentations, such as a boardroom, to set up an office discussion. Choose two players to engage in a debate after that.

Depending on what you want to get out of the exercise, the topic may be work-related or silly. Both players must make arguments, one in favor of the subject and one against it. The audience will then vote to select who they believe to be the winner.

6. Mysterious Murder

Inform your staff of a crime that just happened in the cafeteria by interrupting them in the office! You can get pretty creative with murder mystery events, which are a great way to build relationships among your workforce. 

There are leadership games businesses out there that can assist you if you’re unsure of where to begin when setting up a murder mystery game.

Choosing a theme for your murder mystery party is the first step. After selecting a topic, it’s time to write your murder mystery. You can always locate pre-written murder mystery stories online if you’re experiencing writer’s block.

It’s crucial to know the precise number of attendees because they will give each person a character and take on a different role during the event. Give your staff clothes and props to assist them to get into character.

A negative consequence, such as having to wear a ridiculous hat or having money put in a jar until the next player breaches character, can be announced to encourage participants to stay in character.

7. Make it Through the Sinking Ship

The cooperative nature of Survive the Sinking Ship requires everyone to work together to create their survival strategy, which fosters creativity and teamwork. 

Survive the Sinking Ship urges players to prioritize wisely, express their viewpoints clearly, and pay attention to others’ perspectives. To take part in the activity, “Survive the Sinking Ship,” follow these steps:

Consider yourself and the other participants to be on a ship that is sinking. You can see an island in the distance, but before it sinks, you only have time to take five things from the ship.

As you wait for help, consider what supplies would be beneficial on the island. Mention the objects you consider useful and explain why you included them.

8. The Circle Table

You will want four identically sized round tables for this activity. Create a unique, intricate job with multiple steps for each table before the activity begins.

Your staff should be divided into four teams, one, for each table, and given a leader. The leader cannot perform the work; they can only communicate, direct, and delegate the task at hand.

Start the activity, then note how long it takes for each team to finish. Move each team to the following table after recording the results. Each time you move, you can choose to keep the same leaders or name new ones.

9. Untangle

The success of this leadership game hinges on how well everyone cooperates and communicates to reach a common aim. One or two leaders will often develop during the process to support and lead the team to success.

Place everyone in a circle shoulder to shoulder. Tell them to put their right hands in the hands of people on the opposite side of the circle.

Then tell them to put their left hand in the left hand of someone else (who cannot be standing next to them).

Once everyone has clasped hands, test the group’s ability to separate itself without severing the link. They have to start over from the beginning if they break the chain.

10. Water Balloon Dodgeball

Water balloon battles are always entertaining and dramatic. It is vital to know and understand your team well before opting to play water balloon dodgeball since it is crucial that they become enthusiastic about the notion.

You’ll need 2 large buckets or containers, water, cones, and water balloons.

Create a rectangle field with your cones, divide it down the middle, then set a sizable bucket full of water balloons at each end to play Water Balloon Dodgeball.

We should split your players into two equal teams, and you should instruct each squad to have a bucket of balloons at the opposite ends of the field. Set a time limit for each game, say, eight minutes, before the game begins.

As soon as the game begins, teams must try to eliminate the opposite team by launching water balloons at them. A player who has been hit must leave the field and cannot return.

The winning team is the first to eradicate the whole opposition. The team with the most players wins if players are still on both sides when the allotted time has passed.

11. Office Trivia

Office Trivia is a simple question-and-answer game to determine who has more knowledge about a team.

By posing trivia questions about the workplace to the opposing participants, this game is played. Instead of focusing on the players’ work, the inquiries should be about them. The quiz’s winner is the team with the most accurate responses.

This game’s goal is to gauge each team’s members’ level of expertise. To lead a team effectively, you must first get to know that team. You can determine who knows their teammates the best by playing this game.

leadership games

12. A Scavenger Hunt

Employees can work as a team, discover more about their employer, and tour the office by participating in a scavenger hunt. It can be difficult for an organizer to come up with creative scavenger hunt ideas, but try not to give up. 

The aim of the game is to fulfill challenges or uncover objects hidden around a predetermined environment. Once the team has located the object or finished the task, we give them a clue for the upcoming stage.

The team that finishes the scavenger hunt’s many stages the quickest is the one that wins.

Use your imagination when selecting the puzzles, tasks, and goods for your scavenger hunt. When considering challenges, think about the important skills you want your team to gain.

13. Spelling Bee

The Spelling Bee competition is a popular event that gives your team a chance to showcase their linguistic prowess.

The host will compile a list of words that the competitors must attempt to spell; the list will start off easy but soon get more challenging as the game goes on. If a player answers wrong, you have the option of excluding them from the game or awarding points for correctly spelled words.

Why not give players the chance to earn more points by including “bonus rounds”? Consider having them spell words backward or by using a term from a different language.

leadership games

14. Leadership Book Club

You might start a book club for your team with a leadership topic as an example of an effective leadership development activity.

Establish the duration of the activity before the meeting to prepare. The book club may take place only once or often.

Next, choose the books everyone will read and make sure they all have a copy.

Give the reader adequate time to examine the books as well. Next, decide on a convenient time, day, and location for the activity. 

The guests’ main activities will be to ask questions and offer criticism of the author’s leadership style.

15. Magic Carpet

Teams must flip a rug over while remaining inside its confines in order to complete the magic carpet task.

In playing this leadership game, depending on the size of the team, divide your group into smaller ones.

Prepare a mat, sheet, or rug large enough for the number of team members to stand on.

Ask the teams to turn the rug to the other side after they have positioned themselves on their mats.

None of the competitors may leave the rug’s perimeter when flipping. The participant’s team will have to restart if this happens.

The winning team is the first to successfully turn the carpet over. This exercise tries to instill the important leadership qualities of cooperation, tolerance, and problem-solving.

16. Drawing Communication

Drawing communication is when a team member just uses gestures to convey an idea. After that, a different team member tries to draw the object. In this exercise, team members’ ability to communicate effectively and work together to solve a problem is evaluated.

You’ll need a pen, paper, and a blank page to draw on. They should divide the team into pairs with two people seated across from one another.

Following the description session, the gesturing player will reveal the object. If the other team member properly sketches the object, that team triumphs.

If, however, the team member does not precisely sketch the thing, they will explain why they could not understand the movements.

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Teams can learn crucial abilities that will make them better leaders by playing leadership games. Building teams, guaranteeing good communication, and enhancing problem-solving abilities are some advantages of these activities. 

In addition, playing leadership games doesn’t just increase productivity at work. The activities also improved aspects of the participant’s personal life, such as decision-making in difficult circumstances.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sports, experiences with other cultures, social gatherings, internships, volunteering, student organizations and government, “Teamwork” and “passion projects”

The goal of leadership exercises is to assist leaders to improve their leadership abilities and increase the effectiveness of their responsibilities. Activities to develop fundamental leadership abilities, such as problem-solving, active listening, and successful group dynamics might be included.

Unwind and loosen up a little. Don’t be so serious about everything!

Give Props and Compliments Easily.

Have a day where you “Bring your ___ to work.” When I was younger, “spending time” with my classmates was one of my favorite pastimes.

Play games.

Adorn the workplace.

Do a day of service.

Give a Treat.

Respect is earned by treating teams with dignity under great leaders. Transparency: Being forthright and honest at work increases productivity and enjoyment. Trust: Effective delegation calls for the leader to have faith in their team to carry out tasks to the best of their ability. This fosters team spirit and respect.

Four different types of leadership behaviors or styles were identified by House and Mitchell in 1974: directive, supportive, participatory, and achievement.

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