Leadership Step 5

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

Step 5: I manage group discussions to reach shared decisions

Outcomes

To achieve Step 5, learners will have to show that they can manage group discussions so that shared decisions can be made. In earlier steps, the focus was on how leaders manage tasks by sharing them thoughtfully and fairly, and then managing time and resources so that team members can complete those tasks.

Learners need to be able to:

Know how to organise a meeting/discussion
Understand which different roles exist in a meeting
Know how to chair a meeting

Introduction

A meeting is when two or more people come together for a discussion, e.g. to share information, create new ideas, debate different views, to get to know someone and to make decisions.
To make sure a meeting runs effectively, we need to decide:
- Who is organising the meeting? They will ensure that the right people are invited, the agenda is decided, a time is set, information is shared in advance and where it will be.
- What is being covered? The Agenda of the meeting is the document which says what is going to be covered.
- Who is chairing the meeting? There is normally a leader for a meeting, who makes sure that the meeting runs smoothly, keeps to time, covers the agenda and makes decisions.

Skill Starter

Pause!

Learners have to think back to a time where they have watched/been part of a group discussion before or after a match. Prompt them with a reminder if needed. Ask learners to reflect on the following questions and feedback to the group:

Who organised the meeting?
What was the being covered in the meeting?
Was it successful?

10 mins

Group activity

Discussion

Teach & Apply

There will be different roles during a meeting. If it is small, then one person might take on more than one of the roles:
- Chair – this is the person who leads or facilitates the meeting. Their role is to make sure that the Agenda is covered.
- Note taker – for formal meetings, someone is responsible for writing down a summary of what happened (minutes), the decisions that were made and any actions to do next.
- Time keeper – to help ensure that the Agenda is covered at the right pace.
- Presenters – in some meetings, information will be shared and this will be given by people called presenters.
Chairing a meeting is a particularly important role as you have to ensure everyone has a chance to contribute their ideas or reflections:
- Be clear on the question you want to answer – this should be the focus of the discussion. This will help to keep people on point. You can politely say that you will come back to other points later on, or outside that meeting.
- Don’t let people talk over each other and encourage quieter people to contribute.
- Summarise the discussion – remind everyone of what has been discussed; share what you feel the decision that has been made was.

Optional Activity

‘Block Catch’ Circle Game

Demonstrate the game: One person stands in the middle of the circle (the thrower). They can pass to anyone in the circle. Before they pass, they shout ‘Block’ or ‘Catch’.

The person receiving the ball has to react and do the opposite. E.g. If the thrower shouts ‘block’ they must catch it to remain in the game. The ‘Block’ action involves putting hands in front of their body and NOT catching the ball.

Nominate a leader to be the ‘Thrower’ in each group of 4 - 6.

Play game (5 minutes).

Ask groups to run a meeting to devise a new circle game (everyone tries to think of one). Encourage learners to appoint the 4 different roles to run the meeting effectively. After 5 minutes, the Chair must listen to ALL the ideas and reach a shared decision to create a group game.

25 mins

Group activity

Discussion

Active

Reflection & Assessment

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

Use “strategy spotters” and select learners to look out for and share feedback on learners using particular strategies for reaching shared decisions through formal and informal discussions/meetings.

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

This step is best assessed through observing a meeting and how the leader organises and then chairs a meeting. The coach should look for evidence of effective chairing using the guidelines above.
Ask these reflective questions:
- What do you need to do to plan a good meeting?
- How do you make sure everyone has a chance to contribute their ideas?
- How to you get to decisions?