Leadership Programs

THE LEADERSHIP STUDIO™ PROGRAMS

The Muskoka Woods Leadership Studio works collaboratively with groups to reccommend programs to create a memorable and rewarding experience.

Specialist High Schools Majors Certifications (SHSM): To meet the growing need for certifications for students in the SHSM, we also offer customized certification programs:

Communication
Conflict Resolution
Risk Management
Customer Service
Group Dynamics
Fundraising

Health and Safety
Leadership
Sports Leadership
Ethical Considerations
Project Management
Social Media

Educators please contact us for a complete list of grade 11, 12 learning outcomes links.

Astronomy Experience: Have you seen the stars in Muskoka? What leadership lessons can be learned from supernovas, shooting stars and constellations? You’d be surprised. A delightful way to end a day in the Studio, this powerful experience concludes with a giant outdoor campfire, hot chocolate and s’mores.

Coffee House Culture: Early coffee houses in the UK were called Penny Universities. Patrons purchasing a cup for a penny were exposed to lively debate and fascinating new perspectives from the broke intellectuals who frequented the shops. Many sociologists and historians argue that every important political, social, philosophical or art movement from the 17th century developed in a coffee house. Learn how leaders can re-create this kind of culture in their own school, department or organization.

Arctic Pursuit: This Eagles Flight simulation teaches the importance of leveraging every member of your team to leverage every possible opportunity.

Coffee Tasting Challenge: The ability to “truly notice” is a key leadership capacity. This could involve noticing a colleague’s lack of participation, an untapped opportunity or a social justice issue that could be addressed in this generation. Coffee lovers and haters alike will develop a new appreciation for the nuanced differences of history, aroma and flavour in the simple coffee bean and its glorious end product – a freshly roasted, perfectly ground and lovingly French Pressed cup of java.

Deep Blue Sea: What child, after hearing stories of Black Beard, Jack Sparrow & Elizabeth Swan has not secretly wished to be a pirate? Here’s your chance to battle it out with other ships to maximize your company’s profits and be the ship that carries the most gold within your month of sailing the crystal blue Caribbean waters. There are many obstacles in life and work that seek to re-arrange our best laid plans. In this experience, you are given a closed time frame to maximize results while achieving accountabilities.

Dogsled Challenge: This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to fly across frozen terrain behind a yelping team of sled dogs. With a huge emphasis on mental agility and physical stamina, the experience builds confidence and communication skills. Participants will learn to manage a team by earning trust and communicating wisely. Along the way, they’ll discover personal strengths they never knew they had. (Seasonal & weather dependent)

Draft Day: This Eagles Flight Sports themed experience provides opportunities to practice the skills needed to build a high performing team.

Drum Circle Challenge: This fun and creative experience demonstrates that there are stages a team must progress through before they are ready to perform consistently and brilliantly.

Fire Rescue Challenge: The chaos of complete darkness, flashes of orange flame against the walls, dense smoke, loud noise and only seconds to find the occupants trapped in one of the rooms. Split-second decisions are the norm, but not just any decision; the right decision can mean the difference between life and death. In this fast-paced experience, your team will enter a simulated burning building wearing Turnout Suits, dragging hoses, and trying to remain in contact with your chief. Your task? Rescue the occupants and extinguish the fire, all while preserving your own lives.

Group of 7 Art Challenge: Tom Thompson and the Group of 7 were influenced, but not inhibited, by the art world of their day. Daring to believe there was something distinctive about Canada and themselves as Canadian artists, they started a movement that would become iconic. Set in a reproduction Group of 7 art camp overlooking Lake Rosseau, this spectacular adventure combines the ability to truly “see” and reproduce while reflecting on the power of influence and persistence.

Hansa: The Hanseatic League was an economic alliance of trading cities and their merchant guilds that dominated trade along the coast of Northern Europe. As the leaders of your cities, you must keep the promises you made to your electorate and help your fellow politicians keep theirs, recognizing there may be alliances and scandal along the way! Communicating well, a global focus and a trusting environment are the keys to Rise of the Hansa.

High Ropes Challenge: This trust and confidence-building exercise enables people to face their fears and choose their own level of personal and team challenge. Whether on the giant swing, teams course or zipline, the insights gained from this experience will be easily transferrable to facing new fears, taking on new challenges, and pushing yourself and team beyond what they thought possible.

Innovation a la Seuss: Dr Seuss, master storyteller, model of innovation, beloved by generations, started with a challenge from a friend. In 1954, Life magazine published an article on illiteracy among schoolchildren, reporting that children were not learning to read because their books were boring. Geisel (later known as Dr. Seuss) took up the challenge. The result? The Cat in the Hat. Dr. Seuss used clever combinations of words and fanciful illustrations to create a playful story. In this experience, you will peek into the fanciful world of Dr. Seuss, using it as a springboard to our own communication, creativity and innovation.

K’Nex Bridge Challenge: In this hands-on Leadership Studio foundational activity, we not only build a bridge, we also discover the skills necessary to be bridge-building leaders.

Low Ropes Challenge: This team-building experience brilliantly accentuates the unique strengths of your team members, while clearly demonstrating that success is only possible through genuine collaboration and trust. The experience and learnings are both more challenging than they look.

Marble Star: This Eagles Flight Inc. simulation reminds us that one of the most challenging parts of leadership is knowing how to balance results and relationships, talent and trust, tasks and people. This experience gives the opportunity to practice this balance. The insights are often transformational.

Mime Challenge: 70% of the work of a leader is communication. We all spend vast amount of time talking and listening, but very few people are good at it. Forced to communicate without words, leaders must focus their energy on finding fresh ways to engage and interact. Learn the power of a single core idea and the secrets of a successful interaction.

‘More Than One Way to Ring the Bell’: Life and leadership rarely proceed on an orderly trajectory. This rock-wall climbing exercise quickly and powerfully demonstrates that sometimes leaders have to go sideways or even backwards to achieve our mission: getting to the top of the wall and ringing the bell.

Nascar Pitcrew Challenge: NASCAR racing has emerged as a leading example of “team-based” execution. Today’s crews demonstrate highly-planned activity during each and every pit stop. While assuming the roles of a typical NASCAR pit crew, participants will get plenty of opportunities to hone the skills crucial to team execution.

Mole: This fast-paced and challenging experience forces team members to communicate and cooperate in a way that few short exercises can. Can we move the mole through ‘his’ tunnels from one port to another, thus ensuring the transfer of information needed to break the spy ring? Only those skilled at communication and execution, who don’t crash under pressure, can.

Pauline Johnson Poetry and Paddling Experience: Pauline Johnson (Tekahionwake – which means ‘double- life’ in Mohawk) is a Canadian icon. Her First Nations chief father and English mother built a home with two front doors, so European visitors, coming by carriage, could come in one and Native visitors, coming by canoe, the other. Their house became a bridge between two worlds. When Pauline’s father died and they had to leave this family home, Pauline decided to become the bridge, herself. As a poet, writer, speaker and activist, she truly was a woman before her time. Pauline used to camp just around the corner from the Studio, writing poetry on the river now renamed “Shadow River” after the poem she wrote while canoeing. Through simple paddle making and poetry exercises, leaders will explore many of the lessons from her life, including a call to build bridges. Please note: this can be done as a half-day experience at any time of year without the paddle making, or as a two-day spring or fall experience that includes making paddles.

Pyramid: This activity brings “pulling strings” to a whole new level. It sounds simple enough: pick up a bottle and move it to the edge without knocking it over. Four corners, eight strings. Sometimes pulling, sometimes easing off. Is your team up to the challenge of the Pyramid? Conflict resolution can quickly become a main teaching point.

Raft Building: A team-building challenge that gets everyone out on the water and dependent on each other to get back to shore (available June – October only).

Ready, Aim, Fire!: A fun, target sports experience that explores key components of goal setting and, more importantly, hitting targets!

Shackleton Experience: Ernest Shackleton is considered one of the greatest leaders of all time that never achieved one of his goals. When his ship got stuck in packed ice on the way to the South Pole, he had to revert to Plan B, then C, then D. This outdoor winter experience focuses leaders’ thinking on resilience, flexibility and contingency planning with strategies and principles that will be instantly transferrable to other contexts. Please note: this seasonal experience can also be done as a full-day to two-day winter exercise.

Sherlock Holmes Challenge: “Elementary, my dear Watson”… well, it is elementary when you know what to look for. In a world overrun with information, how do leaders know what to focus on? Even more challenging, how do leaders protect themselves from locking into one line of thinking that will preclude them from seeing other, potentially more important, pieces of the puzzle?

S’mores and Storytelling: Nothing says camp like sitting around the campfire telling stories and eating s’mores. This deceptively simple experience has lessons for us all: overcoming a fear of speaking in front of others, mastering the components of an effective story, or discovering the organizational stories that will unite and motivate your team.

Stockticker: In this fast-paced game of buying and selling stocks, participants discover how to read trends and take calculated risks.

Trebuchet: A teambuilding activity that requires getting all the right pieces in all the right places and constant ‘tweaking’ to ensure you hit your target.

Winter Experience: Does it get any better than fresh snow and a pair of snowshoes? What if we were lost, had to build our own shelter and start a fire without matches? Resiliency, sharing knowledge and conflict resolution strategies suddenly take on a whole new meaning.