Most leadership development relies on case study discussion or retrospective reflection — you analyze what someone else did wrong, or think back on what you'd do differently. Neither builds the reflexes you actually need in the moment. This tool is designed as a flight simulator: low-stakes reps before high-stakes situations.
The four scenarios are grounded in situations design leaders face regularly but rarely get to practice: scope negotiation without authority, peer conflict in public, accessibility advocacy against velocity pressure, and stakeholder dynamics that undermine team structure. All four require navigating disagreement without formal power — the definition of lateral leadership.
Every choice maps to one of the following frameworks, and the coaching feedback names the framework explicitly so players can build vocabulary alongside experience:
| Framework | What it encodes | Where it appears |
|---|---|---|
| Negotiator | Separate positions from interests. Find the actual constraint. Create options neither party considered alone. | Scenarios 01, 03, 04 |
| Fighter | Assert your position directly. Can protect quality or process but often damages the relationship and reads as rigid without formal authority. | Scenarios 01, 02, 03, 04 |
| Diplomat | Preserve the relationship first. Use curiosity over defense. Effective in critique settings and when a junior colleague is caught in the middle. | Scenarios 02, 04 |
| Avoider | Delay or deflect. Sometimes useful; often a pattern that costs more than it saves when used reflexively. | All scenarios |
| People Pleaser | Concede to maintain harmony. Erodes credibility over time and transfers your consequences onto you silently. | Scenarios 01, 02, 03 |
| AID feedback | Action → Impact → Desired change. Specific and actionable. Used for peer-to-peer feedback without making it personal. | Scenario 02 (hallway debrief) |
| SBI feedback | Situation → Behavior → Impact. Grounds feedback in a specific event rather than pattern-labeling. Useful for junior team members. | Scenario 04 (coaching Priya) |
| Radical Candor | Care personally + challenge directly. The combination. Used in the Priya debrief to show that reassurance alone isn't leadership. | Scenarios 01, 04 |
Each scenario was built around a different kind of lateral conflict, with distinct stakes and a different "winning" framework:
The color system (cobalt primary, outcome colors for good/okay/bad) is deliberate: immediate feedback signals are necessary for the simulator to work, but the coaching text matters more than the score. Players who get "bad" outcomes but read the coaching text are learning more than players who luck into "good" ones.
The score percentage is shown at the end rather than after each decision to prevent score-chasing. The goal is reflection, not optimization. The debrief shows each decision alongside its framework label — the point is to help players see their own patterns.
"The best way to get better is to rehearse." The scenario structure is built around that premise: decision → consequence → coaching → next decision. Spaced and specific feedback is what builds new defaults.
The five conflict styles are represented asymmetrically — Fighter and Avoider appear in all four scenarios because they're the most common defaults under pressure. People Pleaser appears in three. Diplomat and Negotiator are often the "best" choice but are harder to reach in the moment, which is the point of the repetition.
Scoring is intentionally lightweight. A flight simulator's job is to build reflexes, not grade performance. The debrief recap and coaching text do the actual work.
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