Interactive Activities Develop Students’ Leadership Skills
‘Today’s children are tomorrow’s leaders.’ While some children are blessed with innate leadership qualities, others require more effort and time to develop them. Being a good leader does not only mean leading a team, but also exhibiting self-confidence, good communication skills and the ability to strategise. Teachers and parents need to encourage and nurture children to develop their leadership skills.
Interactive activities play a crucial role in developing leadership skills. These activities can be verbal, visual, or vocal. They should involve children in different tasks and motivate them to develop their leadership skills. The word ‘interactive’ implies involving communication between people. Thus, when a child interacts with other children through various tasks, it helps hone his/her decision-making, team-building and communication skills. It also boosts his/her self-confidence and helps the caregiver identify the child’s weak areas and develop a plan to help the child improve in these areas.
Benefits of interactive activities
Interactive activities enable children to mingle and help them overcome their inhibitions. They perform different activities individually or in a group setting, which enables them to hone their leadership skills. There are many activities through which the teachers at school can help children develop leadership skills. Some of the benefits of interactive activities are:
Develops Relational Leadership – Interactive activities help in making the children completely focused on others instead of themselves, which in turn helps in developing the foundation of relational leadership.
Develops Volunteering Roles – Volunteering in activities helps children develop leadership skills. It gives them a chance to lead a task and work with other children, thus enhancing their ability to work in a team.
Helps in strategising – Activities involving discussion and creation of different strategies to accomplish a given task leads to the sharpening of vital leadership skills. Assign a task that they can do by splitting them into groups, where each member of a group can be assigned a specific role.
Bolsters morale – There are activities where students are asked to make a sketch of their own and make identifications to clearly show that the picture is theirs. These activities boost self-confidence in a child.
Teaches to play the role of a leader – Some activities help teach children how to lead their peers. Divide the classroom into groups and choose a leader for each group. Assign each group with a task that needs to be completed under their leader’s guidance. Such an activity will enhance leadership abilities in a child and will also help in developing communication skills.
Helps in generating goodwill – An effective leader expresses goodwill and kindliness. A leader should possess sympathy and tenderness to bind the team together. Teachers can assist children with planning a fund-raiser. This will help children learn about supporting worthy charities, and spreading goodwill towards others.
These are some of the ways through which interactive activities can help the students in developing leadership skills. Nowadays our education system is coming up with more activities which will help in turning today’s children into tomorrow’s leaders.
