21 Stimulating Team Building Activities for CEOs and Executives

As mentioned before, executive retreats are the traditional way of organizing team building activities for CEOs and other leadership team members. These retreats serve as a place of relaxation by taking execs away from their daily hustle and involving them in leadership team building activities that sharpen their skills. Most of these retreats offer in-house activities that the CEOs, departmental heads, and others can participate in. As part of executive retreats, it's essential to prioritize team building for senior leaders to nurture trust and synergy among top executives.

Happy hours provide an opportunity to unwind and socialize, with executive happy hours allowing the leadership team to connect over non-work topics. The setup should be laid back and fun - start with networking icebreaker questions, and include bar games like darts, pool, etc. Happy hours are great team building activities for CEOs as it allow them to bond at a personal and human level.

Executives are among the greatest assets to an organization, and it is crucial for staff to stay in touch with the roots. Identifying a few of the frontline workers, having a one-on-one conversation with them in the organization, then brainstorming with other leadership team members can be a remarkable team building activity for CEOs. Consider implementing a recurring series of small group sessions on a quarterly basis, where executives or leadership teams can engage in open discussions with staff members.

These sessions should encompass various topics, enabling employees to express their thoughts, ask questions, and provide constructive feedback. The primary objective is to foster an environment of transparency and collaboration within the organization, facilitating improved communication between leadership and staff. Engaging in senior management team building activities helps enhance collaboration and decision-making within the leadership team during their tête-à-tête sessions.

Completing problem-solving games like Stranded and WhoDoneIt with a leadership team or group provides a fun, challenging, and pragmatic team building activity. CEOs and other executives will improve problem-solving skills, critical thinking, collaboration, and teamwork.

Personality Tests administered for employers are simply assessments of our personalities from a behavioral perspective, highlighting our strengths, areas of development, and how we work best. When CEOs and leadership teams take tests like the Predictive Index (PI) Behavioral Assessment and DISC Assessment together and discuss the outcomes, it helps in understanding their outlook towards leadership, workplace communication, conflict resolution, and how they can best work together and collaborate. 

We all need time away where we don’t think about business - CEOs included. Organizing a fun gala night for the C-suite, along with their spouses, would be among the best executive team building ideas. Have a themed night, organize mixology lessons, poker games, basically any fun activity that they would enjoy, and emerge refreshed on the other side of the party.

It never hurts to unwind and relax by setting aside business and the entire world for a while. This study shows that CEOs sleep 24% less and work 23% more than the average worker. Having a weekend of wellness can provide enlightening team building activities for CEOs. A weekend at the spa, meditation lessons, and organizing events that promote wellness will rejuvenate the leadership team. The rest and time away, will allow the team to return to work recharged and more productive.

With many industries shifting to remote and hybrid work, newer communication and technical skills are required for the executives to run the company remotely. Hosting workshops on remote team management can be useful team building activities for CEOs, leadership teams, and department heads. These leaders can then cascade the learnings down the hierarchy for smoother remote performance across all employees.

We picture executive escape rooms like James Bond movies. Espionage games help the C-suite practice essential leadership skills like critical thinking, decision-making, staying calm under pressure, persuasion, people skills, and change management. You can choose the free online spy missions or enroll in a corporate spy mission for a fully hosted experience.

One of the most underrated team building activities for CEOs, leadership teams, directors, and department heads is virtual activities over a group chat. Send in a precursor about what the discussion will be and schedule a duration feasible for everyone. Everyone can come up with ideas and have an informal yet serious discussion around them.

TED Talks are known to host influential speeches by experts across multiple disciplines. CEOs have reached that position by being an expert in what they do. Organizing virtual talks by the CEO to inspire the employees across all levels would be one of the inspiring team building activities for executives. Create a TED series where each member of the leadership team presents a topic. Through these talks, the leaders inspire, educate, and share their personal experiences and expertise.

If the C-suite team is still working remotely, it would be a challenge to get everyone together for its CSR activities. However, everyone getting together and contributing towards a cause virtually would be a noble team-building activity for CEOs and other leadership team members. Everyone can get together on a video call, decide on a cause and donate towards it. Here is a helpful list of virtual CSR activities. 

Learning Circle Workshops add structure to learning activities, thereby improving the team's ability to use the knowledge immediately to improve their performance. It combines the virtual water cooler and expert and continuous learning sessions across the organization. Enrolling your C-suite team in this can be rewarding team building activities for CEOs, Directors, Departmental Heads, and other leadership teams alike.

Virtual Happy Hours are one thing, but to have a virtual wine tasting is a classy team-building activity for CEOs. You can check this list for places offering virtual wine tasting, book one, and enjoy a Saturday brunch virtually, along with tasting some vintage wine. This relaxing team building activity for CEOs was the most favored one among our leadership team.

After uncovering the hidden chefs, it is time to unleash the C-suite team's Sherlock Holmes and Miss Marples. Solving murder mysteries can be a great team building activity for CEOs and other leadership team members as it enhances critical and analytical thinking capabilities. Check out this list of websites that offer virtual murder mystery puzzles for inspiration.