The win: because icebreakers help teams feel more connected, which helps better work get done.
This month’s featured icebreaker is The Cell Phone Challengeand is great for kicking off a meeting, reconnecting after a busy week, or anytime you want something quick and fun for your team to do together.
If you have 7 people or less on your team, do this together as one group. If you have 8 or more, break into small groups of 3–4 people. This works just as well virtually – simply use breakout rooms.
How it works:
Ask everyone to pick a number between 5 and 10 and remember it.
Have everyone open the Photos app on their phone and switch to the grid view.
Ask participants to swipe up the number of times they chose in Step 1, then stop.
From the photos visible on their screen, have each person choose one photo to share with the group:
what the photo is,
what was happening at the time, and
why it matters to them.
That’s it. Simple, personal, and surprisingly effective at helping people reconnect – especially at the start of a busy or tension-filled meeting.
(5 second chuckle)
The win: a good laugh after a long week.
(2 minute support system)
The win: A fresh leadership thought and the reminder that you aren’t alone in this.
It doesn't mean you're doing it wrong—it means you're doing leadership
TLDR: Running into the same challenge again and again doesn’t always mean you’re doing it wrong…it often just means you’re doing leadership.
Have you ever hit a leadership challenge and thought, “I can’t believe I’m dealing with this AGAIN”? The same issue. The same conversation. The same pull in two directions, just showing up in a new form?
What’s often happening in these moments isn’t a failure to solve a problem – it’s a tension at play. Leadership challenges like leveraging change AND maintaining stability, or managing costs AND maintaining quality, aren’t about choosing the “right” side. They exist because both values matter.
That’s what makes them ongoing tensions to manage, not problems to solve.
When we treat these moments like problems—picking one side over the other—we tend to swing too far. We overcorrect, oversimplify, and eventually find ourselves facing the same challenge again. The work of leadership is learning how to hold both sides well, keeping the tension healthy rather than letting it pull us apart.
Leaders at Raise Recruiting found themselves navigating these exact dynamics. Through The Power of Healthy Tension workshop, they slowed down, named the key tensions they were living in, and built a shared language around them – eventually incorporating those tensions directly into their company playbook.
What changed wasn’t that the tensions disappeared. Leaders felt less reactive, more grounded, and more confident navigating complexity together.
“The concept of healthy tension has become one of the most useful tools in our company’s toolkit.” — Tim Masson, CEO, Raise Recruiting
If this sounds familiar, know that you’re not alone. Our The Power of Healthy Tension workshop might be helpful for your team if you are facing a challenge that doesn’t seem to go away. And even if now isn’t the right time, we hope this is an encouraging reminder: Running into the same challenge again and again doesn’t always mean you’re doing it wrong…it often just means you’re doing leadership.
If you find your team bumping up against a tension again and again, you don’t have to navigate them alone.
Let’s equip your leaders with tools to manage what can’t simply be solved.
Christy takes great pride in designing our business operations to ensure our clients get the first-class experience they can expect when collaborating with Leaders for Leaders. When facilitating, she is dedicated to helping teams with the courage, skills, and knowledge needed to tackle complex challenges head-on.
Christy has worked as a teacher, university instructor, and school leader, honing her ability to design and deliver exceptional learning experiences for all ages. Her hope for everyone she works with is that they leave energized and empowered to increase their effectiveness and capacity in both their professional and personal lives.
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Have you ever hit a leadership challenge and thought, “I can’t believe I’m dealing with this AGAIN”? The same issue. The same conversation. The same pull in two directions, just showing up in a new form?
