The past few decades have seen a massive increase in the emphasis placed on teaching leadership in America’s classrooms.  Yet educators have totally dropped the ball on these efforts by simply developing curricula to teach leadership through lectures, readings, discussions, and case studies.  Their strategy completely ignores the fact that true leadership can only be learned by actually leading something.

Teachers could dramatically improve the way they prepare America’s future leaders by making one simple change to their teaching style: Appoint clear project managers for group projects. I don’t mean just designative a “group leader” who acts as the spokesperson during group presentations and classroom discussions.  I mean actually telling one student that 80% of the project’s grade weight is on his/her shoulders.  Teachers can rotate project management responsibilities for each project throughout the semester, so that each student gains experience as both a group leader and in supporting roles.

Having clearly designated project management roles will result in both greater project artifacts and the development of critical skills that will become indispensable as soon as the student finishes school (or college). Students will learn to schedule meetings, lead small discussions, delegate responsibilities, create and manage project plans, set deadlines, solve group problems, and develop status reports for periodic meetings with the facilitator – a.k.a. the teacher.  Appointing a project manager for school projects also helps prevent the usual group project power vacuum, and is much better than asking the group itself to awkwardly select a leader on its own.

I strongly encourage teachers to think more carefully about how they assign roles in group projects, and to not be afraid to appoint discrete project managers whenever the situation permits.