Diagnostic training for engineering leadership

Stop watching new managers learn on your team.

LeadSim is a management simulation that reveals how engineering managers actually lead — the patterns, the blind spots, the second-order consequences — before those consequences affect real people, real shipping, and real retention.

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Diagnostic readout Wk 06 · Live
Delivery
62
Team trust
38 ↓
Scope creep
71 ↑
Cohesion
51
Burnout risk
64 ↑
Pattern detected: Manager avoids difficult feedback conversations. Compounding effect on team trust began Wk 03. Projected impact on Q3 delivery: −18%.
Problem 01

Manager training that can't be measured isn't training. It's hope.

60%
Gartner research, via Fortune (2024)
of new managers fail within their first 24 months
Workshops, books, and one-off coaching don't translate to behavioral change. New managers learn by making real mistakes — on real teams. The cost lands on retention, shipping, and your time spent triaging the fallout.
Zero
measurable outcomes from typical L&D spend
You buy training because something has to be done. Six months later you can't tell whether it worked. The standard frameworks measure attendance, satisfaction, and self-reported confidence — never behavior.
Invisible
blind spots you only notice after damage
Patterns like conflict avoidance, micromanagement under pressure, or treating high-autonomy engineers like juniors don't show up in self-assessment. They show up in skip-levels, one-on-ones with the wrong people, and eventually in resignation emails.
Mechanism 02

Stop teaching management. Run it.

01 · Experience
You're the manager. Decide.
You run a team of five engineers. They have personalities, opinions, and things they aren't telling you. You decide how to handle every situation that lands on your plate — performance issues, scope creep, a conflict between seniors, someone quietly looking for another job. Decisions compound. Nothing resets.
02 · Consequence
Every decision comes with debt.
The cost of management decisions doesn't show up in the next standup. It shows up three weeks later, in the quiet flight risk. In the senior who stops volunteering for hard problems. In the junior who learns that asking for help is a bad idea. You see those debts settle, exactly when they would in real life, exactly tied to the choice that opened them.
03 · Diagnostic
The report you can act on.
At the end of every run, the manager sees what they actually did: the patterns they fell into, the moments that broke their team's trust, the decisions that compounded. You see it too. Run it again six months later. A different result is proof of change. Nothing else gives you that.
Preview 03

What managers see during the simulation.

leadsim · week 07 · project phoenix
LeadSim Team Health dashboard showing real-time character states, health scores, and trends across the engineering team
Above: Team Health dashboard — real-time view of how each engineer is reacting to the manager's decisions.
leadsim · deep insight · week 07
LeadSim Deep Insight screen showing per-character reactions, parameter changes, second and third-order consequences, and lesson summary
Above: Deep Insight — why each team member reacted the way they did, what the manager could have done differently, and what's coming in 2–8 weeks as a result.
Differentiation 04

Training you can actually measure.

 
Workshop / coaching
LeadSim
Manager's time invested
A full workshop day
A few hours, on their own time
Time until you know it worked
Six months, maybe a year
Same day, when the run ends
Measurable behavior change
None
Run-to-run comparison
What you actually walk away with
A signed roster
A diagnostic you can act on
Behind it 05

Built by someone who has watched this fail dozens of times.

Founder · LeadSim
Michał Orzechowski
20 years in engineering · Mentor to dozens of IC-to-manager transitions

I've spent two decades inside engineering organizations watching the same scene play out: a strong individual contributor gets promoted, leadership crosses their fingers. Six months later the team is fragile, the new manager is exhausted, and nobody can quite point to what went wrong.

I built LeadSim because the gap between management theory and management reality is unbridgeable by reading. The patterns that matter: conflict avoidance under deadline pressure, treating high-autonomy people like juniors, mistaking activity for progress. They only become visible when consequences arrive. Usually too late. By then, the pattern has cost you a person, a quarter, or both.

"LeadSim is the tool I wished I had when I was promoting people who deserved the opportunity but weren't ready for the reality. It shows them how they lead. It shows you what to do about it."
Connect on LinkedIn
Closed preview 06

Apply for the closed preview.

We're launching in Q3 2026 with a small cohort of engineering organizations. Preview partners shape the diagnostic, get early access for their managers, and lock pricing in for the program.

We'll review applications individually. No mass marketing. Reply within 5 business days.
Application received.
Thank you — I'll review your details personally and respond within five business days. If we're a fit, I'll suggest a short call to discuss what closed preview access would look like for your organization.