What Simple Instructions Reveal About How People Actually Lead

The simplest instructions sometimes reveal the most.

This past weekend at HOBY Maryland, I ran my favorite leadership exercise with a single, open-ended prompt: Build something as a group.

Each group received a bag of LEGOs with just that one instruction. No additional rules, instructions, assigned roles, or detailed goals. 

And every time I run this activity, people immediately fall back into their default patterns.

Some groups spent a few minutes mapping out a strategy before touching a single LEGO. Others started snapping pieces together instantly without a plan. Some looked for hidden rules or meaning that didn’t exist, while others focused entirely on making sure everyone felt included.

The LEGO structures themselves do matter, because they often reflect how that group naturally sees the world. But the bigger value is what the structure reveals.

How people communicate. How they make decisions. How they respond to ambiguity. How they influence a group without always realizing it.

That’s what strong leadership development can do. It creates the right conditions for people to notice themselves more clearly and build a shared language around their way of thinking and acting.

Because once someone can see a pattern, they can start deciding whether that pattern is helping the group or getting in the way.