Abstract:

Introduction:
Leadership is an old interesting subject for researches. The fact is that organizational success is related to leaders performance. Organization can reach excellence through aligned and well-conducted Leadership. Leadership is considered more as behavior competency than as technical skill and it is pointed as an important subject for professionals. Learn leadership is possible by living it considering that it has a behavior background. Neuroscience studies say that human brain does not recognize reality from simulated environments. So this is the conceptual basis for educational games using for teaching worldwide. Inside a simulated environment students can make errors and discuss about them without any consequence into reality.

Method:
This research is a quasi-experimental study designed with time series and was applied in two Higher Education Institutions in the State of São Paulo (Brazil). Study population were 86 participants divided into five groups of students that agreed to participate in this research. This study aimed to understand the behavior of the variable "knowledge about leadership styles" before and after application of an educational game elaborated with the theoretical grid management concept. Only four grid management styles were possible to use in this game due its dramatizations characteristics: democratic, paternalistic, autocratic and liberal. Data were collected after and before the game application using a form where participants could correlate three affirmative sentences for each management style in this study.

Results:
Results described that the game, developed for this research, provided apprehension of knowledge by comparing moments before and after game exposure. T-student statistical test for paired samples with the use of a significance level of 5% were applied for comparing data and post-test correct phrases correlations were higher than pre-test. To enable analysis of correct phrases correlation for each leadership styles in the pre-test and post-test Non-parametric Wilcoxon test was used, with a significance level of 5%. Differences in the percentage of correct correlations in the post-test compared with pre-test for the phrases of autocratic, paternalistic and democratic leadership styles were found. Phrases correlations for the liberal leader style had no significant change. In the pre-test phrases for liberal leader style had a higher percentage of correct correlations and phrases for paternalistic leader style had the lowest percentage. In the post-test correct phrases correlations for paternalistic and democratic leader styles achieved higher scores considering phrases correlation for all studied styles.

Conclusion:
Educational game can teach leadership behavior styles by using dramatization. Considering its living characteristic it can be used as a pedagogical strategy for Leadership teaching. Variables that affected liberal leadership style correct phrase correlation in the pre-test must be new studies approach.

Keywords:

Educational game, knowledge, leadership.