Step 2: Discuss participants’ leadership styles before trying the simulation
exercise. Say,
“Think of a time when you led someone and were clearly not flexible in
terms of providing the appropriate style for her/his needs. What
happened?” (Discuss their responses.)
“Now think about the people you manage. With whom do you tend to
use your primary style? Your secondary style?” Discuss.
“Which style(s) do you need to develop?”Step 3: Introduce the simulation by distributing Handout 32.1, Let’s Make
Snowflakes.
“The purpose of this activity is to give you an opportunity to simulate
the behavior of leaders and followers who work in the city’s public works
department. Your work group has been charged by the Public Works
Director with producing artificial snow because the lack of natural snow
will spoil the upcoming Winter Fest.”
Tell participants, “I have selected a leader for each of four groups:
______, ______, ______, and ______. Our department quality engineer
will be ______(the facilitator, an extra participant, or a guest).
While I talk with them, I want a volunteer to collect $1 from each of you.
Just like real life, this is a competition between teams. The pot will go to
the winning team. I also want to talk about the lousy warm fall weather
we’ve been having.”Take the leaders aside and give them their style descriptions, as listed on
the handout. Caution them not to reveal the assigned style to their
followers.Step 4: Give additional instructions to the group. Pass out scissors and paper,
and restate the goal: “The goal is to see which team can produce the
most snowflakes. The winning team will win the pot of money.”
Remind them that there are two phases: planning and production.
“The planning phase will take 10 minutes, followed by the judging of
designs. Then I’ll give you 10 more minutes to produce as many
snowflakes as you can in that period of time.”
Step 5: Begin the planning phase with these instructions: “Your work group has
10 minutes to develop a snowflake design that all members of the team
SET AN EXAMPLE^177