Leadership Training 1

I recently put on a leadership workshop. There are multiple styles of and theories of leadership, but here are a few that i've found useful. The better part of this workshop though were the activities that followed it. You see training people to be leaders isn't as straight forward a task like training a manager might be, so rather than just lecturing all day the real goal was to have a series of activities that help develop leadership skill by doing them. It also helps that it's fun to do it this way!
The slides have more than the video

It's interesting that my post on Leadership Training seems to consistently get views vs this one on Leadership Development. I'm guessing it's because of the topic title & the fact that i've written a description. (So let's update this post and see what happens). Might as well add my Officer Management slides developed for the Network Security Team (Club at CSUMB) after this. All three of the presentations have related, but slightly different material included.

The training involved a presentation of hypothesis on leadership, then three activities. (We really didn't do much on the last activity.)

What is a Leader?

First consider the following: What do you think a leader is?

As a side note you should write your thoughts and answers down, if you are serious about getting the most that you can from this training. So, back to the question. What do you think a leader is?

In the training we got some really good answers and perspectives such as:

*Being a member of a group while also helping to facilitate a more organized group.

*A leader cares and facilitates rather than just telling people what to do.

*Leaders are individuals that at the end of the line are accountable for the goals & objectives of a group.

*In philosophy could be ultimately an individual that everyone ultimately serves Or in reverse the servant of all.

If I gave my own person definition of what a leader is it would be something like A person who has a vision that gathers other people around them to accomplish something.

While some of these answers may resonate more to you than others, it seems that studies haven't been able to consistently find that one leadership style is better than another. It appears that the best leadership approach depends on the time, place, people, and purpose. (My source for this is the Freakonomics podcast, and some web searching about it. See other blog post "Leadership Training" for the links) While there might not be one best answer for how to be a leader, there are some things that appear more often in what are considered effective leaders.

Leadership Styles & Theories

Value Ethics Vs Machiavellism

There seems to be a repeating theme through history and across different cultures a division between leaders of virtue vs leaders that do whatever it takes. The Greeks are major proponents that leaders should be filled with virtue, and in a similar line of thinking so were the Hebrews as proponents of righteous moral leaders, as well as the disciples Confucius with ethical leadership. This position i'll call a Value Ethic leadership. On the other hand, we can also see another view that is well known as Machiavellism which can also be seen from ancient times such as the dispersion of people within the Babylonian empire, the harsh Legalism in ancient China (sort of), or with Machiavelli himself in his book The Prince. I would like to note that i'm not saying all of these examples are the same, far from it, but there are general similarities that exist between them of worth noting.

Value Ethics simply states that a leader should ultimately encompass good virtues, and that will make them a great leader. The broad form of Machiavellianism that speaking on basically says that a great leader will do what ever it takes regardless of goodness to set a direction and control of a group.

I strongly believe in the Value Ethics approach to leadership. The other I wouldn't consider a true leader, but a type of manager. (Some of which are good, others of which are hated)

Let talk about some big picture leadership styles. Note, most leaders encompass several.

Authority

When I say Authority, what do you think of?

I think by far this is the most commonly held and used form of leadership. Social engineers know it too and will appeal to the authority of a title, position, or form (If you are interested about the social engineering aspect take a look at my post on Social Engineering)

In the slides you will see pictures of related things such as the architecture of the Roman empire, ancient Egypt, individuals in uniforms such as police or soldiers, or even specific politicians.

The leadership style of Authority leaders due to their position.
It is as good or bad as the leader who uses it.
It is efficient in decision making.
It is often effective in emergency situations.
It is common.
It is most easily abused.

Character

How would you describe someone who has good character?

This type of leadership style follows the Value Ethics approach. The character approach is where a person embodies a set of values. It's harder to characterize this simply because some who rely on the authority style will try to appear like they embody character but will lack it within. It's more about how a person's internal beliefs and values align with the actions they take.

The scouting uniform seems to be a good candidate image

for a visual representation of something that is within a person.

(I guess you could say the uniform which operates under the

Authority style is used to represent character in this instance.)

People choose to follow because of their values, virtue, and traits of their character.
Leads by Example. (Servant Leadership)
Values can be cultural in origin (time or place) or specific to occupation.

Competence

Benjamin Franklin & Nikola Tesla seem like good science

inventor/business candidates for encompassing this leadership style.

This form of leadership style is often gained through experience working, through education, hobbies, or a combination of the two. Mentorship is a type of this leadership. Someone who has experience in a trade, or activity is often valued because of this leadership style. An example of this in martial arts is that someone who wins competitions regardless of their rank or belt, people will want to learn from.

People follow because of their skill, effectiveness, or knowledge.
Great for specific activities.
Often not effective outside of their specialty.

Vision

Visionary leadership seems to be the most powerful of all the leadership styles. This type of leader has a strong, vivid, ideal of things to be. They are able to articulate it to others and share that vision with others who then begin to try and accomplish it. Leaders who show this style include the Founding Fathers of the United States of America, Martin Luther King Jr., Ghandi, Hitler, Joan of Arc, and Moses. It's worth noting briefly again that both good and bad can come from leaders.

Leadership through vision.
Communicates How things should be, might become, or can be accomplished.
Often the greatest impact, for both good or for evil.

Other

There are many many many other leadership/management styles you may hear about, and it seems the dominate styles being talked about has massively shifted in the past 4 years. A quick web-search for "Management Styles" seems to generate a list of politically linked management styles such as autocratic vs democratic. A set of styles that I think is interesting to consider is the Administrator/Facilitator/Manager/Entrepreneur grouping.

Conclusion of Lecture Portion

Ask yourself: Of these leadership styles, which ones do you feel you encompass the most?

Developing Leadership Skills

Okay, onto the FUN portion. In my experience it is more effective to do activities that build leadership skills than to talk about them. A lot of the activities we do for these types of training is directly influenced by my extensive time in Scouting. I've found that Scouts (12 - 18 year olds) often tackle these activities more quickly than college students (18+) because they have learned skills that are essential to working together.

Tape Maze

This activity is pretty simple. Split the participants into groups. You make a path (or paths if the group is large enough), and place within the path "land mines" that you can't step on. The group has to guide someone blind-folded through without having them step on a "land mine" if they do, you send them back to the beginning. To make the activity more difficult you can assign some people to give false directions or make noise to distract. It surprising how difficult this activity can be.

Great for developing group communication and listening skills.

Obstacles & Limitations
This activity is fairly simple. You assign everyone in the group a disability such as they can't use a leg, arm, talk, see, hear, etc... and you have some sort of obstacle they need to get over (Typically a high bar, or rope/string). The group has to work together for everyone to make it up and over. It's generally a good idea to assign at least one person no disability, to help everyone else. (Normally someone a bit bigger, or stronger looking is ideal, unless you want it to be even more difficult.)

One of the best activities that develops teamwork, group communication, cooperation, compassion.
You might need to encourage people that they can accomplish the task with the resources around them. (Like chairs)

Meeting Simulation

This activity is about understanding procedure, it's more of a management type skill. It seems to be one of the less effective exercises. It includes a list of rules and a series of activities. Each participant is given a small portion of the rules or the description of the event, and they are not allowed to share what they are given to begin with. Not being able to read or share the rules you've been given simulates dysfunction in a meeting. In the rules given below it becomes difficult for them to complete the task when one person knows the proper sequence of events, but another one knows that following the events in sequence is how they properly complete the activity.

You can pretty much do any event for a mini obstacle course that you want. For example:

Egg on spoon relay.
Cup stacking event.
Don't touch the spider web / electric fence. (tape some string across a hallway)

Here is an example ruleset, each rule corresponds to one of the three rules to running a meeting in brackets. Rules given could be something like the following:

The game starts automatically regardless of any other rules when/if the announcer of the game sits down. [2]
You lose points if you start early (any amount early) or end later than the announced end time. [2]
You may end before everything is complete if you want to. [2]
The game ends regardless of any other rule when the announcer stands up. [2]
The goal of the game is to complete the obstacles in sequence. You lose if it's out of sequence, no points awarded. [1]
The sequence of the game is: Cones, Ballon Walk, Cup Stack, Mini Bowling Alley, Rubber Bands. [3]
An extra point is given if each person is assigned a particular task/obstacle which is written down ahead of time and they are the one who completes it. [1]
You may win the game by completing the goal of the game.
The second round begins 5 minutes after the Evaluate video has finished playing.
Extra points get candy.

3 Rules to Running a Meeting

This portion of the presentation largely comes from the following New York Times Article

1) Set the Agenda.

2) Start on Time. End on Time.

3) End with an Action Plan.

If you've spent the time to read this, hopefully you've found some value out of it.

Sources

While some of the notions by the speakers in the resources i've listed below maybe controversial to some, I've found these to be of great value to the development of the thoughts that are listed above. If you do decide to read them do so with a spirit of trying to understand the speakers and get at the core concepts that they are trying to convey.

* How Great Leaders Inspire Action by Simon Sinek | TED
* The Authority of Personality, Competence, and Character | BYU Speeches

* Leaders and Managers | Hugh Nibley | BYU Speeches

* https://freakonomics.com/2007/08/13/how-much-does-the-president-really-matter/

* https://freakonomics.com/2011/08/17/narcissists-look-like-good-leaders-but-are-they/

* The Prince - Wikipedia