Developing Leadership in a Simulation-Games Environment

Leadership is a process of inspiring people in pursuit of various goals and various activities. Leadership is often discussed in the context of project management, and leaders referred to as being able to organize and motivate a group of people to successfully finish a given project. In order to inspire, organize and motivate others, leaders need to have advanced social skills. Successful leaders are constantly trying to improve their social skills and knowledge. Life-long learning is important for leaders, especially learning by experience and in a real-time environment. Simulation games enable participants to learn by doing which gives them the opportunity to understand real everyday situations and possible consequences better. During simulation games, users train, analyze and predict possible actions which help them in the decision making process. The goal of this paper is twofold. The first goal is to present and analyze the usage of simulation games in leadership, their desirable characteristics, advantages, and disadvantages in the area of leadership. The second goal is to present relevant platforms for using simulation games for leadership activities and to discuss them in the context of students learning.