Session 1 - Jan 27th, 2008

Leadership Institute
Agenda

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2:00pm - 2:15pm: Welcome, Introduction, Agenda Overview

2:15pm - 2:30pm: Leadership Bingo

Objective: Participants will get to know more about each other and then introduce each other to the larger group.

Procedure:
1. Give each participant a 'Leadership Bingo' sheet and have them go around the room and fill out their sheets.
2. The first person to scream out 'Bingo' wins!

Processing:
1. What was it like to do this activity?
2. What were some of the answers you had in common with other people? What were some of the differences?
3. Did any of the answers (for yourself or others) surprise you? Why or Why Not?

SEGUE: Now that we have more of an idea of some of the ways that you interpret your own leadership, we are going to do an activity that will get us thinking about how we work together as a group. Because we will be planning the upcoming workshops together, it is important to not only think of our specific leadership skills as individuals, but really how we work together as a group to get to our goals.

2:30pm - 3:00pm: Paper Towers
Procedure:

• Break the class into groups of approximately 5 to 6 participants.
• Once the groups have situated themselves, hand out a different role to each of the people in the group. Let them know that they need to keep it their “restrictions” a secret. (See the roles below)
• Instruct the participants to make the tallest possible free-standing tower of paper and tape. Each participant must follow whatever restriction they have been given.
• Allow approximately 10 minutes for them to try to build their paper tower.
• Ask them to freeze. Allow them a few minutes to scramble and complain of the difficulty of the activity.
• Lift all restrictions off of the group and give them 5 more minutes to finish their towers.
• Freeze and begin processing the activity.

Roles:

• Can’t see
• Can’t use your hands
• Can’t talk
• Can’t touch paper
• Can’t touch tape
• Can’t stand up
• Can’t use right hand

Processing:
What happened?
Were you successful?
How did you feel? Why?
Was it easier once the restrictions were removed? Harder?
How did you communicate your restrictions to one another?
What forms of communication did you have to use in order to achieve your goal?
What is non-verbal vs. verbal communication?
Did you use both?
What were the different types of non-verbal & verbal communication?
Did someone end up taking on a leadership role? How so?

3:00pm - 3:10pm: Emotion Introductions

Procedure
1. Have participants stand in a circle.
2. Instruct them that you will give them an emotion, and we will go around the circle and have everyone say their name using that emotion.

3:10pm - 3:30pm: Snapshots- What does leadership look like?

Procedure
1. Put students into groups of three and ask them to spend some time speaking with each other about the meaning of leadership.
2. Tell participants to imagine that you are a photographer for a major daily newspaper and are looking for pictures to go with the caption, "What does leadership look like?" Explain that each group will create a 'photo' of what they think leadership looks like. However, rather than using an actually photo from a camera, they will use their bodies to form a 'snapshot' or frozen picture. Each group is to strike and hold a pose, creatin a picture that they think expresses leadership.
3. Demonstrate the technique with a non-related subject such as "a ride on the roller coaster" or "the first day of school".
4. Allow 10 minutes for the groups to develop their snapshots.
5. Have groups come up to the front and present their snapshot to the rest of the group, ans ask the audience to comment on what they see.
6. Continue the process until each group has shared and then review the key words about leadership.

Processing
1. What do you think of the images that were presented?
2. Why did you choose the images that you did?
3. What were some similarities and differences between what was presented?
4. What does leadership mean to you? Do you have a different perspective from others in your group?
5. What are the positive and negative aspects of exercising leadership?
6. Is the ability to lead an innate gift or is it something one develops? Explain.
7. What are the qualities of a good leader?
8. Why will leadership be important for the Confronting Concerns project?

3:30pm - 4:15pm: Brainstorming the Issues

Procedure
1. Have students take a look at the charts from last year's confronting concerns program. Have a short discussion about the issues that youth identified as the ones that affected them most.
2. Have students break into pairs and have each pair choose one of the topics from the charts.
3. Once in their groups have them answer the following questions on large sheets of paper:
    a. What do you know about this issue?
    b. What do you still need to find out?
    c. What are the root causes of this issue?
    d. How is this issue linked to other issues?
    e. What are current policies on this issue?
    f. How are people in other communities (in NYC and around the world) affected by this issue?
    g. What are possible solutions to the problem?
    h. What can you do about it?
    i. Who are leaders-- local and global, that address this issue?
4. Once students have answered as many of the questions as possible, have them come back together and present their issue to the rest of the group.

4:15pm - 4:30pm: Looking at the Confronting Concerns Program-- Planning for the future
1. Ask the students to share with you the goals of the Confronting Concerns program.
2. Have students then share their experiences with the program over the last two years.
3. Then, have students begin to think about what their own goals for the Confronting Concerns III program are.
4. Have students think about what topics they would like to focus on for the CCIII workshops. Also have them think-- where do they want the workshops to be? What format do they want them in? Who do they want to be at the workshops? Do they want to do them on seperate topics, or on the same topics?

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back to Confronting Concerns III overview

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