Teaching Sequence

Timing should be approximately one session of 60 minutes followed by a second session of about 60 minutes for interviewing a leader.

25 minutes	Part A: Perceived traits of a leader
25 minutes	Part B: Creating and interview
30 minutes	Part C: Conducting an interview
25 minutes	Part D: After-interview reflection
15 minutes	Reflection

Before the lesson

Before commencing this unit of work, organise a visit from a local leader in your community so that this lesson can be timed within a week or two of the visit, enabling the content to still be relevant to student learning.

You could seek out a local emergency services worker, the mayor, business leaders, or even your principal - anyone who you might turn to for leadership and advice during a crisis. This is a good opportunity to engage with the community, and there are probably many parents who are appropriately qualified and would be willing to volunteer their time.

Part A: Perceived traits of a leader

Step 1.

Provide students with as much information as possible about the upcoming visit. Who is visiting, what their position is and when they will be visiting.

Step 2.

Independently, students create a list of qualities they associate with being a leader.

For example, do leaders need to be smart? Eloquent? Nice? Organised?

Step 3.

As a class, share your ideas. Students might add to their own list.

As students make suggestions, they should justify why they think this is an important trait in a leader. Can they describe a situation in which this trait might be put to use, such as making a speech or giving directions?

Part B: Creating an interview

Step 1.

Independently or in small groups, students create a list of questions to interview your visiting guest.

The questions should inform students about this person, their job, and the work they do to help their community.

Then focus on the traits students attributed to a leader, and create questions to explore these in more depth.

Demonstrate how to pose an interview question that will give you insight into this person and whether or not they possess the trait. For example, if you want to know if a leader is organised, perhaps ask “Can you give us an example of a time you’ve had to organise a big project?” rather than “Would you consider yourself an organised person?”

You may need to discuss with students the difference between an open-ended and closed question. The latter, such as ‘are you organised?’, only has a yes/no answer and doesn’t provide you with much insight.

Step 2.

Gather the groups back together and discuss the questions students have developed. Students can contribute edits to each other's questions, and you might find that several groups have come up with the same questions, so you can filter some of those out.

You now have a complete list of deep questions for your visitor.

Part C: Conducting an interview

Step 1.

Students ask the questions you have compiled as a class.

Give each student an opportunity to ask a question.

Part D: After-interview reflection

Step 1.

Ask students what stood out to them in the interview. Were they surprised by anything the leader said? Did they learn any new information?

Step 2.

Discuss the traits that you were expecting this person to possess. Did the answers you were given during the interview confirm your predictions?

Step 3.

Did the interviewee demonstrate any traits students hadn’t considered? For example, the leader might have suggested that communication skills were way more important than you realised.

It’s interesting to reflect on these gaps between what we think a person who is a good leader during a crisis might be like, and what traits are actually required during a crisis.

Step 4.

Consider whether the traits they listed in their profiles were traits a person would have when they became a leader (what we might call innate characteristics) or whether they would have had to develop these skills and competencies during their training and experience.

Reflection

Ask students to consider whether they think they personally possess the qualities they have listed in their profiles. This can just be considered without reporting back to the class.

Ask students to suggest the one trait they think is most important for being a leader during a crisis situation.

Teacher reflection

Take this opportunity to reflect on your own teaching

What did you learn about your teaching today?
What worked well?
What didn’t work so well?
What would you share?
Where to next?
How are you going to get there?

Resilient Australia - What Makes a Good Leader in a Disaster?

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Summary

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In this lesson