Lesson: What Makes a Good Leader?

Published on May 14, 2025

What Makes a Good Leader?

YOUTH LEADERSHIP

📝 Overview

This lesson plan (LP) introduces students to concepts of youth leadership and addresses three essential questions:
  1. What are the principles and characteristics of good leaders?
  2. What can we learn from existing leadership models?
  3. What are my strengths and weaknesses as a young leader?

📚 TESOL Focus

This lesson plan (LP) utilizes Project-Based Learning (PBL) techniques and guides teachers to:
  • engage students with meaningful real-world content
  • guide students to develop leadership and teamwork skills for collaboration
  • help students reflect on their own skills and set authentic goals for personal development

🎯 Goals

As a result of this lesson, students will be able to:
  • explore principles of good leadership and characteristics of strong leaders
  • develop key vocabulary and language structures needed to discuss these topics
  • investigate several models of leadership and evaluate their effectiveness
  • reflect on their strengths and weaknesses as leaders
  • set goals for personal development in leadership qualities

🔎 Inquiry Notebook Prompts

As students complete the Access lessons, they will document their research, observations, analyses, and reflections in Inquiry Notebooks.

On Page 3 of this lesson, you will find creative Inquiry Prompts to guide students' critical thinking and encourage them to reflect on someone they know who is a leader and what makes them a good leader. Involve students in their learning by letting them choose one inquiry prompt to answer before teaching the lesson plan.

🔊 Audio Recordings

You can find audio recorded versions of the reading text below. If you are unable to access any of the audio files, please contact [email protected].
  1. "An Interview with Patricia Falotico:" male and female voice