15 Leadership Activities for Middle School Students

If you're a middle school student looking to build valuable skills, leadership is highly valued across academics, extracurriculars, and high school. Like any other skill, leadership has to be built through experience and putting yourself in a place where you can take responsibility and initiative.

Why pursue leadership activities as a middle schooler?

If you're looking to practice your leadership skills, there are many activities you can do yourself that also help you develop communication, teamwork, and project management skills. You get brownie points for taking the initiative to work on these ideas independently, while allowing yourself to exercise your leadership skills. Many of these ideas involve working with others, organizing, and coordinating, all of which are essential, interlinked leadership skills.

For mentorship opportunities to build your business and learn leadership skills, you should have a look at this guide on building a business.

To make the task easier for you, we've already compiled a list of 15 leadership activities for middle school students. 

15 Leadership Activities for Middle School Students

1.  Run a Social Awareness Campaign 

Pick a cause you're passionate about and that others will benefit from knowing about, and run a social awareness campaign. The causes can range from reducing plastic waste to digital safety to driving safety, or even around a political issue. You can do this in person by organizing protests, walks, and making posters to raise awareness. Additionally, you can raise awareness online by creating a social media page and sharing content related to your cause. 

2. Join the Junior Innovator Program

If you want to take a business idea from curiosity to creation, the Junior Innovator Program is a virtual entrepreneurship incubator that helps you build a real project solving a problem you care about. Through one-on-one mentorship sessions, you will learn how to apply principles of entrepreneurship, pitching, and business thinking in a hands-on setting. You will also participate in fireside chats and group discussions with a global cohort of student founders, receiving guidance from professionals with backgrounds at Google, Microsoft, and McKinsey. By the end of the flexible program, you will refine your communication and leadership skills by presenting your project and incorporating feedback from peers and top-tier mentors.

3.  Organize a Peer Study Group  

You can choose a subject or class to focus on by organizing a peer study group. plan when and where these sessions will take place. You'll also need to build a system to ensure you stay on track and that everyone makes progress. As you organize this, you need to assign tasks to your group members: some will send out reminders, and others will prepare quizzes or tests for people to take and track their improvement.

4.  Start a Mini Club 

Pick something that you're interested in, ranging from debating and coding to even a small book club; find people around you who share this passion. Create a simple schedule to follow. These can be weekly meetings. Figure out a system to decide the topic of conversation or discussion every week. Brainstorm ideas with your members and keep discussions engaging with prompts and activities. Assign responsibilities to members and establish a system to rotate them. Run it for a few weeks and see how things work out.

5.  Work On A Business Idea

Working on a business idea is a great way to demonstrate initiative because you're responsible for everything that happens. In the initial days, you have to work on creating a sound business plan, set goals for yourself, and focus on offer building, pricing, and validation. Even if you're the only one working, you'll need to reach out to people and demonstrate your business's value. This can be to sell, to validate, or to ask for feedback. 

6. Join A Leadership Camp 

Leadership camps assign you responsibility and help you practice leadership in an encouraging environment. You get to work on tasks, take responsibility for people, and be asked to lead activities. All of this helps with leadership alongside communication, teamwork, and project management.

7. Create and Manage a Bulletin 

You can create a local bulletin for your school or a newsletter that updates people on the local news. This will include building a small team of writers, reporters, and designers. You also need to map out what you plan to include, allocate sections, and assign responsibilities to different people. Decide on a frequency for this bulletin, which can be weekly, and make sure that you meet the deadlines and publish regularly.

8. Mentor Younger Students 

If you're good at a particular subject, you can use your knowledge to mentor younger students.  Set small goals, track progress, and adjust your approach based on how well your mentees grasp what you’re teaching. This will help you improve your communication skills and your ability to guide people and explain complex ideas in a simple way.

9. Run a fundraising initiative 

Pick a cause that you're passionate about and run a fundraising initiative. Set a target for what you would like to raise. This gives you a measurable outcome of your efforts. You can organize a simple fundraiser, either online or in person. You can bring other people to help you with this and track your contributions over time. Test different things, see what's working, and try new ideas until you reach your goal.

10. Organize a Workshop 

Pick a skill that you're good at. This can be coding, drawing, or even an academic topic that people would be interested in hearing about. Design a short session that includes takeaways and lessons for attendees. You can promote this workshop through banners and outreach, which should include a time and a venue. This will help you improve your public speaking skills and build experience in breaking down complex ideas and providing value to others.

11. Take responsibility for a group project

If you are assigned an academic project, volunteer to take responsibility for it. Discuss and brainstorm with your peers to decide the direction of the project. Create a timeline of tasks you need to do collectively, assign responsibilities based on strengths, and check in regularly. Ensure the project is moving in the right direction. Reiterate as needed and ensure the project is finished on time.

12. Lead a fitness group

If you’re passionate about fitness, you can create a group to practice with like-minded people. This works especially well if you're an athlete trying to practice consistently. Organize a group of people, set a schedule for when you will meet, assign responsibilities to other people in the group, and decide on drills, routines, or exercises you would want to practice together. You can also set up fun competitions to keep spirits high. You can also bring in an experienced coach or mentor to guide your group and provide constructive feedback.

13. Organize an online community

Organizing an online community is very different from organizing an in-person community. If you're passionate about something, you can create an online community around that topic to connect with people from different backgrounds. Community moderation has also become a highly valued skill. You can manage your community by enforcing basic rules, moderating community conversations, and using prompts to keep engagement active.

14. Lead a creative project

If you are a creative person, you can work alongside other creative people on a group project. This can be creating a short film, a magazine, or a digital project. All these projects require many people to work on them, and you can start by assigning roles based on their strengths. Create a timeline for your project and set deadlines. Ensure that each person responsible for their rules is doing their job correctly. Ensure everyone is working consistently towards the goal and aligned with your creative vision. Make recommendations as needed and ensure the project is completed successfully.

15. Create Surveys to present insights 

If you like researching topics that affect you and your peers, you can create a survey to explore them in greater depth. Use issues happening around you that affect you and your peers. This can be AI usage for homework, study habits, or increasing screen time. Create a survey around pressing questions on these issues. Once you get the responses, analyze them and ask teachers or professionals for recommendations to create a list of actionable insights.