Challenge Overview

In this challenge your team will explore what effective leadership looks like in practice. Rather than simply describing leadership, your team will design, complete, and evaluate a team-building challenge that demonstrates effective leadership, communication, collaboration, and problem-solving.

Your goal is to answer one central question: What does effective leadership look like when a team has to work together to accomplish a goal?

Project Requirements & Components

Your submission consists of two required parts: a short video presentation and a short written report. To complete this challenge and be eligible for the prizes and awards you need to successfully submit both parts.

Short Video Presentation

• Maximum Video Length: 3:15 minutes 
• Beginning: Video should have a 5 second beginning that includes:
  • Challenge name and season year
  • Your program (e.g., RECF Achieve)
  • Your team number (e.g., Team 111B)
• Ending: Video should have 10 second ending credits that include:
  • Challenge name 
  • Team name and number 
  • Sources (if any are used) 
• Video Submission: Submit a link to your video.
  • The video must be publicly accessible through the submitted link and viewable by judges without requiring a password or sign-in
  • Teams should test the submitted link before submitting

Short written report 

• Title Page: Required. The title page does not count toward the 5-page report limit and must include:
  • Challenge name and season year
  • Your program (e.g., RECF Achieve)
  • Your team number (e.g., Team 111B)
• Report Length: 1-5 pages long, not including the title page
  • Font: Arial 11 point
  • Pictures: May be included, but the report must still fit within the 5-page limit and follow the font requirement
  • Maximum Total Report Length: 6 pages, including the title page
• Report Submission
  • Submit the complete report as a PDF.

Part 1: Define Effective Leadership

As a team, discuss and identify the qualities you believe make an effective leader. Consider:

• What does a good leader do?
• How does a leader communicate?
• How does a leader motivate others?
• How does a leader handle disagreement?
• How does a leader delegate responsibility?
• How does a leader build trust?
• What is the difference between being a leader and simply being “the boss”?
• Can leadership come from multiple members of a team?

Create a list of 5–7 characteristics of effective leadership that your team believes are most important.

Part 2: Create a Team-Building Challenge

Your team must design a challenge that requires members to work together to accomplish a common goal. Your challenge should:

• Require teamwork and communication
• Have a clearly defined objective
• Require each team member to contribute
• Include some type of problem-solving or decision-making
• Have rules or limitations
• Be possible to complete within the available time and resources
• Provide opportunities to demonstrate leadership

Your team may create its own challenge or adapt an existing one. If you use an existing one please give credit. Be creative! The best challenges will require your team to communicate, make decisions, adapt, and rely on one another.

Part 3: Complete the Challenge

Complete your team-building challenge and pay close attention to what happens during the activity. As you participate, look for examples of:

• Leadership
• Communication
• Delegation
• Cooperation
• Decision-making
• Conflict resolution
• Problem-solving
• Motivation
• Accountability
• Adaptability

Every team member should have an opportunity to contribute to the challenge.

Part 4: Create a Short Video

Create a short video, maximum of 3:15 minute, documenting what your team has learned about leadership this season.  Your video should include:

Introduction

• Introduce your team
• Explain your definition of effective leadership
• Briefly explain the challenge your team created

The Challenge

• Show your team completing the activity
• Include clips that demonstrate teamwork and leadership
• Highlight at least one important decision or problem your team faced
• What would you do differently if you completed the challenge again

Reflection

• Explain what your team learned about leadership from completing the challenge. 
• Reflect on leadership on your team during the season and what you learned and put into practice. 

Video tip: Don’t simply record the entire video at once. Select short clips that help tell the story of your team’s leadership experience and changes you implemented. 

Part 5: Write a Short Team Report

Submit a 1-5 page report describing your experience, following the requirements in the project requirements and components section. Your report should include the following sections:

1. Our definition of effective leadership (beginning of the season)

• Describe the 5–7 leadership characteristics your team identified and explain why they are important.

2. Our team-building challenge (complete early in the season)

• Describe the team building challenge and what you learned.

3. Using what you learned

• Describe how your team has used what you learned during this exercise over this season as you worked together as a team. How did it benefit your team? What would you do differently next season?

Final Reminders Before Submitting:

• Check for formatting, grammar, spelling, and clarity throughout your instruction guide and your report.
• Be sure you thoroughly followed the instructions and identified leadership characteristics and documented what that means for your team and how it affected you over the season, and included specific examples rather than general statements
• Check that you created a team-building challenge, clearly explained the rules and objectives, and completed the challenge. 
• Make sure you saved your final written report as a PDF for easy submission.
• Double-check that you created a short video following the instructions and uploaded it to a public site for easy submission and viewing. 
• Double-check that all media (PDF, video) is properly named and organized for submission.

Challenge Success

Your team will be successful if you can demonstrate—not just describe—effective leadership.

The strongest projects will show that leadership is more than giving instructions. Effective leadership involves building trust, communicating clearly, listening to others, sharing responsibility, solving problems, adapting to challenges, and helping the entire team succeed. Have a fun and successful season!