Saving Stitch: An Escape Room Challenge for Introducing Teams and Leadership

Undergraduate management students often perceive effective teamwork and leadership as unattainable goals, doubting their own potential and that of their classmates. This article introduces a gamified escape room exercise designed to challenge these assumptions. Unlike traditional escape rooms, this exercise uses clues to define concepts while the gameplay requires their immediate application, immersing students in the process model of communication, team roles (task, building, and individualistic), and leadership behaviors (task-oriented and relationship-oriented). Students develop practical awareness of their role as teammates and leaders by reflecting on their gameplay. This escape room holds three unique qualities in that each clue aids students in defining theoretical concepts, the experience offers a real-time application of the same theoretical concepts, and in-depth debriefing allows a class to analyze the concepts with a common, shared experience. Instructors can use this article’s materials to run the escape room as-is or as examples for creating their own.