Leadership Step 1

Leadership: Supporting, encouraging and developing others to achieve a shared goal.

Step 1: I know how to explain my feelings about something to my team

Outcomes

To achieve Step 1, learners will be able to communicate how they are feeling about something to their teams.

In the previous step, the focus was on learners being able to recognise their own feelings about something. This step builds on this by thinking about how to share those feelings with others.

Learners need to be able to:

Why it is helpful to explain how you are feeling
Some bad ways of expressing how you are feeling
Some good ways of expressing how you are feeling

Introduction

When we are working with other people, it can be helpful to share how we feel about things.
Ask the learners why it is important to be able to explain how you are feeling.

Skill Starter

Travel Like the Cone

Recap some emotions: happy, sad, angry, confused. Encourage learners to act out examples. Assign emotions to coloured cones, e.g. red = angry, yellow = confused.

Hold up a cone and learners have to travel around the room showing that emotion, e.g. stomping their feet for ‘angry’ and skipping for ‘happy’. Learners must travel in their own space.

10 mins

Group activity

Active

Teach & Apply

If we talk to people about feeling negative emotions and they listen to us, they can make us feel better, understand our view and share their views. If we share positive emotions people might feel encouraged and we can help them to see the positive side of something.
We have to be careful in how we share our feelings. For example, shouting if we feel angry or showing negative body language without explaining why we feel this way can upset people.
We have to be careful in how we share our feelings, making sure we speak about our positive or negative feelings in an effective way. To do this we can:
- Think before you speak. Get into the habit of stopping yourself, thinking first about why you feel the way you do before reacting.
- Try not to make it personal if it is negative. E.g. use “I felt angry because…”.
- Ask other people how they are feeling too. It can be helpful to know how other people are feeling in case it changes your mind or makes you think about something differently.

Optional Activity

Passing in Pairs

Model the structure ‘Today, I feel [emotion] because [reason].’ “Today, I feel happy because you’re all being really kind to me.” Learners work in pairs and choose a beanbag or ball to pass or roll to their partner.

Encourage them to each choose a coloured cone that demonstrates how they are feeling.

During their activity they must try to explain to their partner why they chose their cone (see previous activity example).

20 mins

Group activity

Discussion

Reflection & Assessment

Embed these strategies across your teaching and coaching to help learners apply what they’ve learnt.

At the start of a session, ask learners to ‘check in’ with how they are feeling by choosing a coloured cone and explaining to a friend why they chose the cone. Encourage learners to try this in other areas of their life, e.g. in the morning, at midday or before going to sleep.

Use these ideas for ways of assessing this skill step to help you check learners’ understanding and confidence.

This step is best assessed through observation of group tasks and reflection when incidents have occurred; are learners able to effectively share their feelings without causing further harm or upset, and where possible to resolve differences?
Ask these reflective questions:
- Why is it helpful to be able to explain your feelings to others in your teams?
- What should you be careful about doing when you talk about your feelings?
- Can you give any examples of when you have done this? What was the result?