A group, whether it be a pair for a task, or 20 people for a long term project, is probably going to end up with a leader that comes forward. This leader may not emerge right away due to several factors – anything from being nervous to seeing if another will step up first, or even they just do not want to be the leader at first. After some attempting at organization, it may become relevant that a leader is needed and one will hopefully step forward.
In my volunteer military based organization, the Civil Air Patrol, we have a training event we call Encampment. It is a week long event that is similar to a military boot camp but for ages 12-20yrs. This training event is a perfect place to teach and evaluate the students leadership traits and potential. Having been a student and staff over the years, I understand this process.
One of the best activities in the even to evaluate leadership potential is the Leadership Reaction Course (LRC). The LRC is basically an obstacle course that has multiple stations where an objective needs to be met. The scenario is given to the group of about 10 students, where they then are given only certain resources besides each other to complete the task. Normally, the students will all try to come up with solutions and put them into play one at a time. when those ultimately fail, one member will either be elected or will emerge as the leader of the group.
These leaders will take charge of the group and decide on a method of action to take. The rest of the members will follow the directions given. Ultimately, the team will probably not meet the objective in the 10 minute time limit because this process takes about that much time. But, for the overseeing staff, it gives them some people to focus on when looking for more major leadership potential.
I happened to be that emergent leader my year as a student. I had a team of 8 males, and 2 females including myself. After listening to them argue about what process to use for a particular task, I finally elected myself as a leader and said what method we would use. We did not end up completing the entire objective, but we were able to get much further than before we had a set leader.