Articles / Leadership Games: Activities to Develop Leadership Skills
Development, Training & CoachingDiscover effective leadership games for team building and development. Find ready-to-use games that develop communication, decision-making, and leadership skills.
Written by Laura Bouttell • Fri 28th November 2025
Leadership games are structured activities that develop leadership skills through experiential learning, team interaction, and problem-solving challenges. Research from the Association for Talent Development indicates that interactive learning activities improve skill retention by up to 75% compared to passive instruction. Whether you're facilitating a workshop, running team building, or designing a development programme, the right leadership games accelerate learning whilst creating engagement and energy.
This guide provides practical leadership games ready for immediate use in your development activities.
Leadership games are structured activities designed to develop leadership capabilities through active participation, team dynamics, and experiential learning. Unlike passive training, games create memorable experiences that embed learning more deeply.
Types of leadership games:
Problem-solving games: Activities requiring groups to solve challenges, developing analytical and decision-making skills.
Communication games: Exercises focusing on how teams share information, listen, and understand each other.
Trust-building games: Activities developing trust and psychological safety within teams.
Strategy games: Exercises requiring planning, resource allocation, and strategic thinking.
Role-play games: Simulations placing participants in leadership scenarios.
Creativity games: Activities encouraging innovative thinking and challenging assumptions.
Games offer distinct advantages for development:
Experiential learning: Games create experiences that embed learning more deeply than instruction alone.
Engagement: Interactive activities maintain attention and energy better than passive approaches.
Safe practice: Games provide low-risk environments to try new behaviours.
Team dynamics: Group games reveal and develop interpersonal dynamics.
Memorable: Experiences from games remain memorable, supporting long-term retention.
Immediate feedback: Game outcomes provide instant feedback on approaches and decisions.
| Benefit | How Games Deliver It |
|---|---|
| Engagement | Active participation maintains interest |
| Retention | Experiential learning embeds deeply |
| Practice | Safe environment for new behaviours |
| Insight | Team dynamics become visible |
| Fun | Energy and enjoyment enhance learning |
| Application | Immediate transfer to real situations |
Purpose: Develop decision-making, consensus-building, and prioritisation skills.
Duration: 45-60 minutes
Group size: 4-8 per team
Materials: Scenario cards, item lists
Instructions:
Present a survival scenario: "Your plane has crashed in the wilderness. You have 15 items salvaged from the wreckage. Rank them in order of importance for survival."
Phase 1 (10 minutes): Each person ranks items individually.
Phase 2 (25 minutes): Teams must reach consensus on a single ranking through discussion—no voting or averaging allowed.
Phase 3 (15 minutes): Compare team rankings to expert rankings. Discuss the process.
Debrief questions:
Leadership learning: Decision-making under pressure, consensus-building, balancing advocacy with inquiry.
Purpose: Develop planning, resource management, and execution skills.
Duration: 30-45 minutes
Group size: 4-6 per team
Materials: Limited materials (paper, tape, straws, or similar)
Instructions:
Teams must build the tallest freestanding structure possible using only provided materials within a time limit.
Phase 1 (5 minutes): Planning only—no building allowed.
Phase 2 (15 minutes): Building time.
Phase 3 (5 minutes): Measurement and comparison.
Phase 4 (10 minutes): Debrief discussion.
Debrief questions:
Leadership learning: Planning versus action balance, resource constraints, adapting under pressure.
Purpose: Develop clear communication and active listening skills.
Duration: 30-40 minutes
Group size: 6-12 per team
Materials: Complex images or diagrams
Instructions:
Seat team members in a line where they cannot see each other's materials.
Person 1 receives a complex image and must describe it verbally to Person 2, who draws what they hear. Person 2 then describes their drawing to Person 3, who draws that description. Continue down the line.
Compare the final drawing to the original image.
Debrief questions:
Leadership learning: Communication precision, assumption checking, listening skills.
Purpose: Develop trust, clear instruction-giving, and active listening.
Duration: 20-30 minutes
Group size: Pairs
Materials: Blindfolds, obstacles
Instructions:
One partner is blindfolded; the other must guide them verbally through an obstacle course without touching them.
Pairs swap roles after completing the course.
Debrief questions:
Leadership learning: Clear direction-giving, building trust, following instructions.
Purpose: Develop strategic prioritisation and resource management skills.
Duration: 45-60 minutes
Group size: 4-8 per team
Materials: Scenario description, resource tokens
Instructions:
Teams receive a business scenario with multiple projects competing for limited resources (budget, people, time). They must allocate resources across projects to maximise overall value.
Projects have different risk levels, returns, and time horizons. Teams must justify their allocation strategy.
Phase 1 (15 minutes): Analyse scenario individually.
Phase 2 (25 minutes): Team discussion and allocation decision.
Phase 3 (15 minutes): Present rationale and compare approaches.
Debrief questions:
Leadership learning: Strategic trade-offs, resource constraints, risk management.
Purpose: Develop strategic thinking, competitive analysis, and adaptation.
Duration: 60-90 minutes
Group size: 4-6 per team (multiple teams competing)
Materials: Game board or simulation materials
Instructions:
Teams compete in a simulated market over multiple rounds. Each round, teams make decisions about product development, pricing, marketing, and expansion. Results are calculated based on all teams' decisions.
Market conditions change each round, requiring adaptation.
Debrief questions:
Leadership learning: Competitive strategy, environmental adaptation, decision-making under uncertainty.
Purpose: Develop problem-solving, communication, and collaboration under constraint.
Duration: 15-25 minutes
Group size: 8-12 per group
Materials: None
Instructions:
Participants stand in a circle, reach across, and grab hands with two different people (not adjacent). The group must untangle themselves into a circle without releasing hands.
Debrief questions:
Leadership learning: Collaborative problem-solving, patience, emergent leadership.
Purpose: Develop listening, building on others' ideas, and collective creation.
Duration: 15-20 minutes
Group size: 6-10
Materials: None
Instructions:
The group creates a story together. Each person adds one sentence, building on what came before. The story must be coherent and move toward resolution.
Variation: Add constraints—the story must include certain elements or follow particular themes.
Debrief questions:
Leadership learning: Listening, adaptability, collaborative creation.
Purpose: Quick energiser developing non-verbal communication and coordination.
Duration: 5-10 minutes
Group size: 8-15
Materials: None
Instructions:
Participants must arrange themselves in order (by birthday, height, distance from birthplace, etc.) without speaking.
Leadership learning: Non-verbal communication, initiative, coordination.
Purpose: Develop attention, intuition, and group awareness.
Duration: 5-10 minutes
Group size: 8-15
Materials: None
Instructions:
The group must count from 1 to 20, with each number said by only one person. If two people speak simultaneously, the group starts over from 1. No patterns, pointing, or other coordination allowed.
Leadership learning: Group awareness, patience, timing.
Effective game facilitation:
1. Clarify purpose: Explain what leadership capabilities the game develops.
2. Give clear instructions: Ensure everyone understands rules before beginning.
3. Manage time: Keep games moving whilst allowing sufficient engagement.
4. Create safety: Establish psychological safety for participation and vulnerability.
5. Observe dynamics: Watch for patterns to discuss during debrief.
6. Debrief thoroughly: The learning happens in reflection, not just activity.
7. Connect to reality: Link game insights to actual leadership situations.
Debrief best practices:
Ask open questions: "What happened?" "What did you notice?" "How did that feel?"
Explore dynamics: "Who took initiative?" "How were decisions made?"
Connect to learning: "What does this teach about leadership?"
Apply to reality: "How does this apply to your actual team?"
Capture insights: Record key learnings for later reference.
| Debrief Element | Purpose | Example Question |
|---|---|---|
| Experience | What happened | "What did you observe?" |
| Analysis | Why it happened | "What caused that outcome?" |
| Learning | What it teaches | "What does this reveal?" |
| Application | How to use it | "How will you apply this?" |
Selecting games requires considering:
Learning objectives: What specific capabilities should the game develop?
Group characteristics: Consider experience level, physical abilities, and cultural context.
Time available: Match game duration to available time including debrief.
Physical space: Ensure space accommodates the activity.
Energy level: Consider group energy and select accordingly.
Risk tolerance: Some games involve more vulnerability than others.
Matching games to purposes:
| Purpose | Recommended Games |
|---|---|
| Decision-making | Survival Scenario, Resource Allocation |
| Communication | Information Relay, Blindfolded Navigation |
| Strategy | Market Game, Resource Allocation |
| Team building | Human Knot, Team Story |
| Energising | Line-Up, Count to Twenty |
| Trust | Blindfolded Navigation, Human Knot |
Leadership games are structured activities designed to develop leadership capabilities through experiential learning, team interaction, and problem-solving challenges. They include problem-solving exercises, communication activities, trust-building games, strategy simulations, and role-play scenarios. Games create memorable experiences that embed learning more effectively than passive instruction.
Games offer experiential learning that embeds deeply, higher engagement than passive training, safe environments to practise new behaviours, visibility into team dynamics, memorable experiences supporting retention, and immediate feedback on approaches. Research shows interactive learning improves skill retention by up to 75% compared to lecture-based instruction.
Leadership game duration varies by complexity and purpose. Quick energisers take 5-10 minutes. Communication and team-building games typically run 20-40 minutes. Problem-solving and strategy games may take 45-90 minutes. Always include debrief time—often half as long as the activity itself—for reflection and learning extraction.
Effective debriefs ask open questions about what happened and what participants observed, explore why dynamics occurred as they did, connect experiences to leadership learning, apply insights to real workplace situations, and capture key learnings. The debrief often generates more learning than the game itself.
Many leadership games can be adapted for virtual environments. Communication games, strategy simulations, and problem-solving activities often translate well. Physical games like Human Knot don't work virtually. Virtual games require clearer instructions, smaller groups, more structure, and deliberate attention to engagement. Many purpose-built virtual leadership games also exist.
Optimal group size varies by game. Many games work best with 4-8 participants per team. Larger groups can be divided into multiple teams running parallel activities. Some games (like Line-Up or Count to Twenty) work with larger single groups of 10-15. Very small groups (under 4) limit dynamics. Very large groups (over 15) may need subdivision.
Use leadership games during: formal leadership development programmes, team building sessions, workshop activities, meeting energisers, onboarding orientation, strategy sessions needing creative thinking, and team development interventions. Games work well when energy or engagement needs boosting, experiential learning suits the objective, or team dynamics need exploration.
Leadership games transform development from passive learning into active experience. They create engagement, reveal dynamics, and embed learning more effectively than instruction alone. The right games, properly facilitated and thoroughly debriefed, accelerate leadership skill development whilst building team connection.
The games in this guide address core leadership capabilities—decision-making, communication, strategic thinking, and team collaboration. Select games matching your objectives, facilitate with attention to dynamics, and debrief thoroughly to extract maximum learning.
Like field exercises that train military leaders more effectively than classroom instruction, leadership games create experiences that develop capability through practice. The learning happens not just in the activity but in the reflection that follows.
Choose appropriate games for your context. Facilitate effectively. Debrief thoroughly. Transform leadership development from telling into doing.
Play to develop. Reflect to learn. Lead more effectively.