Recreation Leadership

Distance Learning Course

Study, Learn, Work as a Recreation Leader

Recreation is important for personal wellbeing. It helps sustain a proper work - life balance; and without recreation in ones life, both health and productivity decline; not to mention the affect on personal relationships. 

A recreation leader is a facilitator, who enables and encourages recreational activities. This is an important job, and one that requires a high degree of skill that comes through not only study, but also experience

Lesson Structure

There are 7 lessons in this course:

1. Introduction to Leadership
   • Naure, scope and purpose
   • Leadership in Recreation
   • Leadership Concepts
   • Four Framewor Leadership Model
   • Scope of Leadership
   • Leisure Leadership
   • Negligence -Legal Liability
   • Providing Protection
   • Understanding Legal Requirements and Controls
   • Qualities of a Recreaqtion Leader
2. Leadership Characteristics/Qualities
   • Effective Leadership
   • Leadership Styles
   • How People become Leaders
   • Situational Leadership Theory
   • Life Cycle Leadership
   • The Blake and Mouton Managerial Grid
   • Informal Leadership
   • Inspirational Theories
   • Path Goal Theory
   • Instrumental Theories
   • Motivation
   • Maslows Theory of Motivation
   • Poor Leadership
3. Interpersonal Relationships.
   • Interpersonal Skills
   • Dealing with Problem Situations
   • Stubborn Clients
   • Clients who do not Listen
   • Assertion or Aggression
   • Body Language
   • Types of Non Verbal Communication
4. Communication Skills
   • Principles of Communication
   • Leadership Communication
   • Understanding Communication Barriers -culture, senses, perception, wellbeing, etc
   • Micommunication
   • Listening
   • Gaining attention
   • Questioning
   • Feedback
   • Public Speaking
   • Telephone Skills
5. Team Building.
   • Leading Effective Teams
   • Team Benefits
   • Ways to Start a Team
   • The Elements of a Team,
   • Problems and solving Team Problems
   • Types of Team Members
   • Leadership Responsibilities
   • Team Leadership
   • Shared Leadership
   • Democratic Leadership
   • Relationship Building with Clients
   • Loyal Customers
   • Discount Customers
   • Needs Based Customers
   • Impulse Customers
   • Physical Factors
6. Systematic and Lateral Thinking.
   • Think of the Right Approach
   • Understanding Cognition
   • Lateral Thinking
   • Systematic Thinking
   • Winin Negotiation
7. Applications
   • Significance of leadership.
   • Role and tasks of leadership.
   • Integration of factual information with theoretical information to derive a sensible solution to a leadership problem in a sensible timeframe.
   • Planning the development and building of the team to achieve these aims.
   • Planning actions for sustaining and motivating the team to achieve the aims.
   • Information on a plan of action to organize events

Each lesson culminates in an assignment which is submitted to the school, marked by the school's tutors and returned to you with any relevant suggestions, comments, and if necessary, extra reading.

Aims

• Describe the nature and scope of Leadership.
• Determine the qualities which are required in a leader, in different leadership situations, including the workplace, recreation industries and developmental applications.
• Manage interpersonal relationships in support of effective leadership.
• Communication leadership messages effectively to those you lead.5. Team Building.
• Explain methods that may be used for effective team building by a leader.
• Select appropriate thought processes to follow in order to deal with different leadership problems.
• Lead teams through innovative and creative processes

What is Leadership?

Certain personal traits, such as self confidence, may give some an advantage over others; but effective leadership requires more than simply a forceful personality that is capable of dominating everyone else.

A leader is not the same as a manager or supervisor. This is a key point to remember. Managers and supervisors are able to cause things to happen because they have legal authority to enforce orders. Leaders do not cause things to happen because of any legal authority.

People follow leaders of their own free will; and leadership skills are those skills that allow a leader to effectively communicate with, and influence the actions of their followers. Leaders are people who are in a position of power, and who use that position to influence the environment in which they abide, and the others who share that environment.

Leadership contributes to order, motivates productivity, and influences the way in which resources (human and material) are used.

Positive leadership enables things to happen. The leader in effect influences the environment in a way that encourages certain actions. Negative leadership disables things from happening.

Leaders have an affect upon the environment through different types of actions:

• By setting goals (eg. Time limits, production standards, budgets, etc)
• By determining values (eg. Levels of quality, ethical behaviour, reliability, etc)
• By establishing concepts (eg. Different ways of doing things, Project reviews, new management approaches)

In a recreational context good leadership encourages and inspires both staff and participants to extend their recreational experience whilst at the same time ensuring safety practices that limit personal risk.

Example of Assignments:

Interview 2 different types of leaders, selected from any two of the following types:
*Youth Leader
*Play Leader
*Fitness Leader
*President of a Social Club
*Sporting Team Captain or Coach
*President of some other type of club or organisation (eg. Garden Club, Elderly Citizens Club).
*Any other type of Recreation Leader

Ask them the following questions, and keep a note of their answers –
1. Do they consider themselves a leader?
2. What skills do they consider necessary for leading people?
3. Do they think that they are skilled in leadership? Why?
4. Do they believe that leadership is an inherent quality or something that they have learned?

Observe two leaders, eg. fitness leaders, social leaders, scouts leaders etc.
Observe their performance and attempt to identify ways in which they apply the specific leadership skills which you have read about. Make a note of any techniques you note being used, which you feel could be useful to you in the future.

EXAMPLE ASSIGNMENT QUESTIONS

1. Create a three column table to compare the answers given by the three different types of leaders you interviewed in your set task.

2. Define leadership.

3. Consider your own skills and qualities, and then compare them to the leaders you interviewed in the set task.

a. What skills and qualities do you possess?

b. What skills and qualities do you need to develop to become a better leader? (Write a short essay style answer of 500 words).