Leadership Step 2

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

Step 2: I know how to recognise others’ feelings about something

Outcomes

To achieve Step 2, learners will show that they are able to recognise the feelings of others.

In earlier steps, the focus was on learners recognising their own feelings and being able to explain those feelings to others. This step is to recognise the feelings of others and how to react well to those.

Learners need to be able to:

Recognise how other people might be feeling
Explore how others are feeling
Understand how to react to others’ feelings

Introduction

There are lots of ways someone might communicate how they are feeling: “If someone felt angry, they might shout or raise their voice but they might also fold their arms or stamp their feet. Words, voice, faces and bodies all help show how someone is feeling.”
Although we might be able to get a sense of how other people are feeling through their facial expressions and body language, we should not just presume that we understand:
- We might have misread how they are feeling – like confusing sadness and nervousness – and not know why they feel that way.
- To learn more about why they feel that way we can use a safe space, open questions like “What do you think/How do you feel about that?” and ask follow up questions to check understanding.

Skill Starter

Bean Game

Whilst learners move around the room, call out a type of bean (below) for learners to act out. Let the learners choose how they act out the emotion ones or support with picture cards.

Runner bean (run around)

Frozen bean (freeze)

Baked bean (tuck shape)

Microwave bean (spin)

Angry bean

Happy bean

Sad bean

Scared bean

10 mins

Group activity

Active

Teach & Apply

Ask the learners why is it important to know how other people are feeling?
This understanding can help us react and change our behaviour towards them, e.g. using kind words if they are sad.
When reacting to others’ feelings, the focus should be about acknowledging how someone is feeling (“I understand that you feel…” or “I hear that you feel…”) and then trying to understand why and seeing if anything can be done to make them feel better if they are feeling negatively about something.

Optional Activity

3 vs. 1 (Part 1)

In groups of 4, give each group one ball. Each group places four cones 5m apart in a square. Appoint one person as a leader for part 2. Three attackers play against one defender. The attackers try to score as many points as possible by touching the cones with the ball, before the defender intercepts the ball. The three attackers must use throwing and catching skills to move closer to the cones and cannot move with the ball. They cannot score on the same cone twice in a row. Play for 3 minutes.

Change the Game (Part 2)

Stop and ask the team leader to share how one of their team members felt whilst playing. “How did you know they were feeling like that?”. Get them to change one rule or adapt the game in response to this, e.g. ‘Ben looked like he wasn’t enjoying being the defender, so I swapped his role.Repeat so other learners have the opportunity to be the team leader.

20 mins

Group activity

Active

Reflection & Assessment

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

During team-based activities, stop the group from time to time and ask them to think about how other members of the team may be feeling. Ask them how they know this.

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

Observe the learners in the group, calling them aside to ask for their reflections on how other team members are feeling. If they are able to use effective vocabulary, ask for their permission to share this with the whole group at the end.
Ask these reflective questions:
- How can you tell how other people are feeling without them speaking?
- How can you explore how other people are feeling through questioning?
- How should you react to others’ feelings?