Student Leadership Traits Posters

Helping students develop their leadership abilities all starts with a clear understanding of what leadership is. Based on what I have learned through a lifetime of leading as well as my experiences in character education, social and emotional learning, and teaching personal and social responsibility, I’ve adopted the following the following eight traits to guide my students’ understanding of leadership:

• Leaders care deeply.
• Leaders communicate effectively.
• Leaders pay attention.
• Leaders stay focused.
• Leaders show strength.
• Leaders empower others.
• Leaders inspire trust.
• Leaders keep learning.

To help you bring this definition of leadership to your teaching and support your students as they unpack and understand each of the traits baked within it, I’ve created this set of nine Student Leadership Traits Posters.

Each trait poster features a visual representation of the trait, a rich description of how the trait supports leadership, and three “look-fors” (i.e. indicators) of observable behaviours associated with that trait.

Similar to how I’ve used the Emotional Lens Tools, the Leadership Trait Poster can be used to add an educational lens to various activities and/or experiences in physical education. Pedagogical methods that pair well with this approach include Jigsaw Learning and Sport Education.

The goal is to provide students with opportunities to explore, reflect on, make sense of, and implement the leadership traits as they progresively develop their capacity as leaders.

Learning comes from doing: we cannot expect our students to develop as leaders if we do not allow them to practice being leaders.

I hope that these posters help you bring leadership education to your school and provide opportunities for you to engage in meaningful experiences and discussions with your students!

Happy Teaching!