Everyone's a Leader

Three quick activities to stretch your team’s perspective

Author

Ajay Prakash
September 09, 2025

Most “team building” exercises are either cringey or forgettable. But when you give your team playful, creative prompts, you unlock something different: empathy across functions, deeper alignment, and a reminder that leadership is everyone’s job.

Here are three of my favorite activities you can run in under an hour—remote or in-person.

1. The Headline Magazine

How it works:

Split the team into groups and ask them to create a front-page magazine cover about your company 5–10 years from now. They’ll write bold (or funny) headlines and design the cover with FigJam, Canva, or just markers and paper.

Examples from when we ran this at EntryLevel:

  • 🧙‍♂️ EntryLevel reskills 1B people 7 years ahead of schedule

  • 👷 EntryLevel lands a $400M contract from Amazon for reskilling warehouse workers

  • 👨‍💼 Elon Musk tries to buy out EntryLevel, then changes his mind

  • 👤 Rene Kumar set to become EntryLevel’s new CEO, Ex-CEO Ajay Prakash still missing

    Kumar states “Big changes are coming” under his leadership

Why it works:

  • Big-picture thinking: Forces people to zoom out and imagine an ambitious (or absurd) future.

  • Cross-functional empathy: Everyone defaults to their lens—engineers want more DevOps, growth wants budget, designers want polish. Seeing this side-by-side is humbling.

  • Lasting motivation: Print the best covers and stick them around the office.

2. The CEO is Missing

How it works:

Announce to the group:

“The CEO is missing. You’ve just been appointed CEO. What do you do first?”

Give people 15–20 minutes to write or present their answers.

What happens:

  • Engineers argue for paying down tech debt.

  • Growth teams ask for bigger ad budgets.

  • Operations people worry about stabilizing delivery.

  • Designers talk about brand positioning.

Everyone reveals their “one-track” bias.

Why it works:

  • Reveals blind spots: People realize how different roles perceive the company’s priorities.

  • Builds empathy: Hearing other functions shows that “my struggle” is everyone’s struggle.

  • Develops leadership muscle: Makes people step into uncomfortable, higher-level thinking.

One of my engineers once admitted:

“I didn’t realize how one-track minded I was until I heard everyone else’s proposals. Everyone is struggling.””

That’s exactly the point.

3. The 2030 Vision — Movie Trailer

How it works:

Ask each group to imagine it’s the year 2030 and your company story has been turned into a blockbuster movie. They have to pitch the trailer script.

Encourage them to be dramatic—use phrases like:

  • “In a world where healthcare was broken…”

  • “One scrappy team decided to change everything…”

  • “Coming this summer: The rise of [Company Name].”

They can write it out, act it out, or even cut together a quick video if you’ve got time.

Why it works:

  • Clarity of mission: Distills your company’s narrative into a simple, inspiring story.

  • Energy boost: Gets people laughing and leaning into creativity.

  • Vision alignment: You see instantly if everyone imagines the same kind of future—or wildly different ones.

Final Thoughts

None of these activities are about getting the right answers. They’re about unlocking perspective, empathy, and creativity—the real levers of team productivity.

Run them, print the outputs, and watch how much more your team understands each other’s challenges.

Because when everyone gets a taste of leadership—even just for an hour—your whole company levels up.

Until next time,

Ajay

🧠 Ajay’s Resource Bank

A few tools and collections I’ve built (or obsessively curated) over the years:

  • 100+ Mental Models
    Mental shortcuts and thinking tools I’ve refined over the past decade. These have evolved as I’ve gained experience — pruned, updated, and battle-tested.

  • 100+ Questions
    If you want better answers, ask better questions. These are the ones I keep returning to — for strategy, reflection, and unlocking stuck conversations.

  • Startup OS
    A lightweight operating system I built for running startups. I’m currently adapting it for growth teams as I scale Superpower — thinking about publishing it soon.

  • Remote Games & Activities
    Fun team-building exercises and games (many made in Canva) that actually work. Good for offsites, Zoom fatigue, or breaking the ice with distributed teams.

✅ Ajay’s “would recommend” List

These are tools and services I use personally and professionally — and recommend without hesitation:

  • Athyna – Offshore Hiring Done Right
    I personally have worked with assistants overseas and built offshore teams. Most people get this wrong by assuming you have to go the lowest cost for automated work. Try hiring high quality, strategic people for a fraction of the cost instead.

  • Superpower – It starts with a 100+ lab tests
    I joined Superpower as Head of Growth, but I originally came on to fix my health. In return, I got a full diagnostic panel, a tailored action plan, and ongoing support that finally gave me clarity after years of flying blind.
    (Want a discount code? Just reply to this email.)