Leadership Pizza

Don't we all like pizza? Besides the good taste, this time the slices offer a leadership self-assessment opportunity.

This exercise can help people to reflect on the different dimensions of what skills and attitudes they need in order to be a good leader.

Flow:

1. You start the exercise by presenting the model of the Leadership Pizza: It is a reflection and self-assessment tool where you think about the most important skills and attitudes that you need to master in order to be a great leader.
   
2. You may present your own version of the leadership pizza to demonstrate an example.  Emphasise that your version is just an example, and they should think about what is important for leadership in their own perspective.
3. Assign time for participants to prepare their own set of important leadership skills and attributes, and ask them to draw a pizza shape and label the slices with the items they listed.
4. At this point, you may ask people to share their drawings with the group and explain which labels have they chosen. You may discuss certain decisions and identify common patterns in the group's perception of a good leader.
5. Ask participants to assess themselves on a scale of 1 to 10 for each slice. (10 is the edge if the slice, 1 is the core of the pizza). This self-assessment should serve as a baseline for setting up their own personal goals for leadership development. The areas where they find them weaker should receive more focus in their future development. 

You may use this tool in coaching and mentoring sessions, too.

Encourage people to set a follow-up action within a few months of time to revisit their Leadership Pizza. They should re-assess themselves, celebrate their development and refine their next goals.

Variations:

• Instead of asking participants to create their own Leadership Pizza, you present a ready-made framework that shows the leadership dimensions you want people to reflect on and conduct their self-assessment. This option offers an easy way of comparing self-assessment results between people. (While the original version has the benefit for every individual to express their own priorities in leadership.)

Examples:

Example dimensions for a Leadership Pizza (as illustrated on the cover image):

• Integrity
  
• Vision & Inspire
  
• Empathy
  
• Value & Acknowledge People
  
• Passion & Purpose
  
• Self-awareness
  
• Self-efficiency
  
• Prioritization
  

Tips for running this activity online

• Pick an online whiteboard tool that allows to use a large, zoomable canvas (e.g. Mural or Miro).
• Users can either draw their leadership pizza on paper and upload an image into the whiteboard or draw it digitally.
• In the reflection step, invite users to navigate to the image of the person speaking in the whiteboard.
• If you don’t have an online whiteboard tool, you can use Slack or Google docs to share and comment on the created images.
• If using video conferencing software alone, invite the participants to share their screen and show their digital image, or hold up their physical drawing for the group to see.