Plan
- What makes a good follower?
- What do you need to complete your task?
- How are you going to organize your team?
Do
- Divide your group into teams of 4–6 people.
- In the teams, choose one person to be the leader.
- The leader of your team will go with one facilitator and everyone else with another facilitator.
- The leaders will be briefed on the task they need to complete and given time to make a plan. The others will have a discussion of how to be a good follower and how they can be good followers in the next activity.
- When your team comes back together, the leader will have a task for your team. The leader will have detailed instructions of what your team is to build.
Review
- What do you know now that you did not know before?
- How did some team members behave to make it easier for the leader to lead?
- Why is being a good follower important?
- How can you be a good follower when your leader is younger than you?
- How can you be a good follower when the leader is older than you, but maybe less experienced or qualified to be the leader than you are?
Keep it Simple
Assign roles to everyone on the team, not just leader or follower. You could have a conflict resolver, problem solver, communication expert, etc. Base a role on the role you normally play on a team, and make sure that you try out a variety of different roles.
Take it Further
Rather than building a tower or structure, plan a real adventure. Use your team to start (or continue) planning an upcoming adventure – budget, safety, program, etc. How does it feel to plan an activity while in a role you don’t normally take on?
