Leaders are taught the skills they need to succeed in life through leadership training. Your teens will retain these lessons if you work on them while playing games with them.
Community Bingo
There is no limit to the number of teens who can participate in this leadership game. It is your goal to meet four community members who complete a row on your bingo card. Youth can get to know local leaders through this program.
Preparation
Gather information about the open hours and willingness of important community leaders to participate from them. It is best to use a variety of businesses and politicians within a 15-minute walk of your meeting location. Give your teens a list of acceptable locations to visit, and note those that are not acceptable.
Use a grid of four spaces across and four spaces down to create bingo cards. Write a brief description of a job within your community in each space. There might be a space that says, “drives an emergency vehicle,” and another that says, “sells food.”
Game Play
- Each player should bring a camera.
- Each participant, or team, should receive a bingo card.
- Review all the rules, including boundaries and expected behavior.
- Players should go into the community and find a person who fits the description listed on their bingo card. For proof, they must collect a business card or take a photo with the individual.
- Upon meeting four community members who complete a row on the bingo card, the player should return to the designated meeting place.
- Bingo winners are those who get a ‘bingo’.
- After everyone returns, discuss the different community members each player met, and why that person is important to the community.
What They Will Learn
Youth can learn basic reasoning skills and networking skills through community bingo, and can gain confidence in meeting new people. If you want to modify this game, you can have players work in teams or create a mock community in your classroom.
During the mock community, some group members would play the roles of different community members while the rest completed the bingo card.
Goal Pyramid
The goal of this group game is to complete a cup pyramid of steps to help you achieve a goal. The number of players can range from five to thirty.
Preparations
It is necessary to provide six plastic cups per player. In an empty room, such as a gym, all the cups should be stacked at one end. Each participant will also need a marker.
Game Play
- At one end of the room (the end without the cups), all players line up in a line.
- Whenever you say “go,” each player must grab one cup and one marker and run to the other end of the room.
- It is then up to each player to sit somewhere on the floor and write down a specific goal.
- In order to collect another cup, each player will leave their goal cup in the spot they have chosen on the floor.
- Once each player returns to their ‘area,’ they will write one step they will take to achieve the goal they have chosen.
- Each player continues in this manner until they have five steps and one goal written on separate cups.
- As each player stacks his or her cups, the goal must be placed on top and the group must wait for the other players to stack their cups.
- The player who builds the pyramid and keeps it from falling over wins.
What They Will Learn
When you have a large group of teens running back and forth across the room, the Goal Pyramid game becomes much more challenging. There is a possibility that people will lose their markers, have difficulty coming up with enough steps, or accidentally knock over others’ pyramids. As a result of playing this game, youth are able to develop problem-solving and goal-setting skills.
Get Off the Couch
People are motivated to work for a variety of reasons. While some are motivated by money, others will work harder if it benefits their loved ones. This activity requires the leader to discover what motivates each team member to get off the couch and accomplish an undesirable task.
It is possible to set a real or fictional task, such as picking up garbage in a large park on a hot afternoon or cleaning public restrooms. Four to six players are ideal for the game.
Preparations
It is necessary to provide a couch, bench, or other designated seating area for all but one teen from the group. It is also a good idea to have a table filled with things that motivate people to work hard. Money, food, video games, clothes, and pictures of loved ones are all examples of motivators. It is recommended to select one player as the leader while the others sit together on the couch. The players should mentally choose one of the provided motivators to convince them to finish the task. 30 seconds should be set as a timer.
Game Play
- In order to persuade each member of the team to stand up and help complete the task, the leader will choose one ‘motivator’ at a time. For each person seated on the couch, the leader may choose only one ‘motivator’.
- Regardless of the strategy chosen by leaders, individual personalities should be taken into account when choosing a strategy.
- Everyone wins if the leader succeeds in getting everyone off the couch within a set time limit. If not, a new leader should be selected and the game should begin again.
- Discuss why each motivator is appealing after the game.
What They Will Learn
By playing this simple game, youth can learn what motivates different types of people. As a leader, it is important to know how to motivate your group so they are actively engaged in completing any task. The whole group can choose the same motivator or each individual can choose a different one.
Tag Team Snack Challenge
This small group game involves creating a snack without verbal communication between three to five players. In order to leave clues for the next team member about the snack’s identity, each player takes on a leadership role.
Preparations
Food items that can be used to create specific snacks will need to be provided. Assemble all the food on a table designated as the pantry. Decide who will go first and what order the rest of the team should follow. Students should be instructed to consider how they can communicate their intentions nonverbally.
Tell the starting player what snack you want them to create in secret. You can ask them to make peanut butter and banana sandwiches, ants on a log, or trail mix. Also, you will need a timer.
Game Play
- As soon as you tell them to start, the first person must begin making the snack.
- After 30 seconds (or one minute for fewer players), the first person must leave the cooking area without speaking and the second person takes over. It is up to the second person to figure out what the snack is and to keep working on it.
- The game continues until everyone has had a turn. It is the last person’s responsibility to plate the snack.
- If the team creates the correct snack, they win. Discuss possible strategies if the team loses, and start over with a new snack and order for the team.
- Discuss what strategies or techniques worked and what didn’t.
What They Will Learn
This game teaches deduction skills and organizational skills on the spot due to its high level of pressure and inability to communicate. If the first player uses the strategy of separating out the ingredients, the other players will have a better idea of what snack to make.
Leaders and teams will be able to meet deadlines if they have the ability to process information and make quick decisions.
Frantic Favorites
This small group game challenges five to seven participants to match three favorite things within a given time frame. It is essential that the group formulate a plan for execution and trust each member to play a part.
Preparations
Each member of the group will need to have a photo taped to a wall. Decide as a group what three favorites to focus on: favorite food, favorite movie, and favorite color. Players must then write down their favorites from each category on separate slips of paper. In a large bowl, mix all the slips of paper together. A timer will also be needed.
Game Play
- It will take the group 30 seconds to formulate and agree on a plan for completing the task. You will then set a two-minute timer for the game play.
- Talking is prohibited during the two minutes of game play.
- The team should pick slips of paper from the bowl as a group. It is up to the group to decide whether to pull one at a time or several at once.
- By taping the slips of paper under each player’s photo, the team must attribute each favorite to a specific person.
- As long as everyone has been assigned a slip of paper or time has run out, the game continues.
- If the group director is correct or incorrect, he or she can inform the group. The director should only state how many answers were incorrect if any were incorrect.
- The group wins if it is correct. In this case, they must try to make changes until they are correct.
- Creating effective plans and working together to achieve a goal is a topic that can be discussed.
What They Will Learn
It will be necessary for group members to make a quick plan before they are unable to communicate verbally. It is imperative that each player follows the plan during game play. There will be players who will step forward and quickly share a plan with the group, while other players will be willing to follow any suggestion that is made. Working together as a team requires both verbal and nonverbal communication.
To play this game, spread out all the slips of paper and have each player pick his favorites and tape them by his picture. As a result, the group relies on each member to select his answers truthfully and to complete his part of the assignment. The key to successful teamwork is to have a common goal, to have a clear plan, and for everyone to pull their weight.
The Fun of Learning With Leadership Games
Teenagers can loosen up and get creative through games that are fun and exciting. A wide variety of skills can be taught through youth leadership games while promoting teamwork.