The Leadership Journey

 

A few months ago I wrote about the “Hero, Hardship, Highlight” activity;(https://culturalsynergies.com/newsletter/issue75-11-17.html). This activity helps to facilitate the building of relationships, collaboration between team members and develop higher levels of trust within the team. This was an activity that was used at the Richmond Football club and I have used a modified version with various clients.
We received lots of response from people who appreciated the exercise and the ability to use it in their teams. As a result of that, I thought I would share another activity. This is called “The Leadership Journey”. This activity offers people an opportunity to reflect on the events, experiences, and other influences that have shaped their journey in becoming a leader. Here is how it works:

  1. Draw a river to represent your leadership journey; using pictures, icons and colors where possible (either on an A4 sheet or on a flip chart).
  2. Highlight the key experiences, people and events that have shaped your journey.
  3. What’s been the impact of these events?
  4. Take turns sharing these stories and illustrations either in small groups or one large group with a maximum time limit of 10 minutes each.
  5. Debrief the activity by sharing insights gained about themselves and others.

I find this activity helps:

  • People appreciate the events and experiences that have impacted their beliefs of leadership and values
  • Articulate their points of view on leadership
  • Share the most important leadership lessons they have learnt
  • Understand that leadership is not linear, you need to be constantly evolving on the journey.

Why don’t you try the “The Leadership Journey” activity yourself or with your teams and let me know how it goes?

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