What does it truly mean to be resilient? In times of uncertainty and change, how can we cultivate an environment that empowers individuals to adapt, persevere, and move forward with confidence? This workshop explores the key mindsets, behaviors, and communication strategies that strengthen resilience at every level—within leaders, teams, and ourselves. By fostering trust, adaptability, and a forward-thinking culture, participants will gain the tools to navigate challenges with clarity and create a foundation for sustained success.
Leaders Aren’t Born – They’re Made.
We build comprehensive team + leadership development workshops specifically engineered for product teams and engineering departments. We understand that technical professionals operate in logic-driven, innovation-focused environments that require leadership approaches emphasizing systematic problem-solving, collaborative development processes, and user-centered design thinking. Our methodology centers on advancing product and engineering leadership capabilities that flourish through technical innovation cycles, product development milestones, and technology advancement opportunities.
From software development teams and product management groups to DevOps specialists, technical architects, and product design professionals, our research-backed, outcomes-oriented approach ensures immediate relevance and enhanced team technical performance. We recognize that product and engineering teams bring exceptional analytical reasoning, innovative problem-solving abilities, and systematic thinking expertise – our workshops leverage these technical strengths while introducing leadership frameworks that enhance cross-functional collaboration, product strategy alignment, and engineering excellence. Our product and engineering leadership workshops create experiences that resonate with technical professionals while driving measurable improvements in team efficiency and product delivery success. This research-based approach respects the methodical, evidence-based culture that defines successful product and engineering organizations, providing practical preparation for technical leadership roles.
Suggested Leadership Workshops: Product & Engineering Teams
Resilience Through Change
Creating a Culture of Trust in Times of Uncertainty
Learning Objectives:
- Define the concepts of positive psychology, trust, and resilience, and explore the building blocks that allow this to prosper in an individual level and within a team environment
- Explore the five common traps where individuals get stuck, and practice the escape route strategies to help ourselves and others to break free
- Design a team environment where trust can thrive, and open dialogue is encouraged
Key Themes & Leadership Behaviors:
- Emotional Intelligence
- Adaptability
- Effective Communication
Learning Objectives:
- Determine personal approach to conflict conversations, and discover the five differing conflict styles
- Identify benefits and potential obstacles for each style to clarify effective conflict communication strategies
- Develop an action + implementation plan for positive, long-term behavior change
Key Themes & Leadership Behaviors:
- Effective Communication
- Adaptability + Assertiveness
- Consensus Building + Alignment
We Can Work It Out
An Experiment with Conflict & Consensus Building
While frequent conflict can certainly be taxing or uncomfortable, disagreements can often lead to enhanced respect, open-mindedness, and innovation. In this workshop, participants will have the opportunity to understand various reactions to conflict, and discover which response is most appropriate for a given situation. Participants leave this session with a deeper understanding of their natural communication style during times of conflict, and a refreshed outlook on how to approach these conversations in the future.
Building The Dream Team
Adjusting Styles To Enhance Relationships & Build Trust
In this workshop, participants will discover the elements of their working style and communication preferences within four key dimensions: how we like to communicate, how we take in and process information, how we make decisions, and how we organize our lives. Through group learning, individual reflection, and group discussion, participants will walk away from this workshop with an increased confidence in their ability to articulate their needs to others, and heightened ability to adjust their styles to meet the preferences of others. This session takes a humorous and informative look at how we operate, providing us with the tools to adjust our styles to work effectively with anyone.
Learning Objectives:
- Clarify leadership and communication preferences, and develop a “user’s manual” to articulate our findings
- Discover the attributes, behaviors and common blind-spots of natural preferences, and explore and understand the same attributes and behaviors of opposing types
- Highlight specific actions we can take when working with someone who leverages opposing preferences, and develop a plan to adjust our styles with at least one current colleague
Key Themes & Leadership Behaviors:
- Effective Communication
- Collaboration + Trust
- Openness + Awareness
Learning Objectives:
- Define the CURRENT STATE and FUTURE STATE of the team’s collective goals and objectives
- Experiment with design thinking methodology to begin ideation of creative, implementable action plans to fully realize your team’s ideal future state
- Leverage positive psychology to create future-focused, behavior-based outcomes
Key Themes & Leadership Behaviors:
- Strategic Thinking + Goal Setting
- Creativity + Innovation
- Positive Psychology & Growth Mindset
Mission Possible: Strategic Design Sprint
Designing the Future State of our Team & Organization
As a team, determining key long-term goals and objectives of our vision for the future is the crucial first step to more accurately inform the look and feel of our day-to-day responsibilities. Through this workshop, participants will leverage the foundational principles of positive psychology and design thinking methodology to determine the team’s goals and objectives for an ideal future state, and begin to develop the roadmap to make that vision a reality.
Why Product & Engineering Teams Choose The Leadership Laboratory
Product and engineering team development requires deep appreciation of technical workflows, sprint methodologies, and quality assurance standards. Technical professionals need leadership frameworks that enhance collaborative problem-solving while building innovative team environments that accelerate product development and engineering excellence. The Leadership Laboratory delivers technical leadership workshops that are process-focused, and designed to optimize the collaborative potential within high-performing product and engineering departments.
Our data-driven technical team workshops blend the art and science of leadership development to create structured, hands-on experiences – strengthening technical leadership effectiveness and product development performance. We understand that product and engineering professionals demonstrate remarkable logical thinking, system design capabilities, and quality-focused mindsets. Our expertise focuses on maximizing these existing competencies while introducing technical leadership skills that improve team coordination, product strategy execution, and engineering process optimization.
Whether your team encompasses software engineers, product owners, UX designers, or technical project managers, The Leadership Laboratory creates systematic, evidence-based workshops that reinforce current technical strengths, enhance engineering leadership presence, and generate improved cross-functional collaboration, product innovation, and technical delivery outcomes. Grounded in systems thinking and engineering management research, our framework emphasizes technical excellence amplification over process inefficiencies, focusing on engineering success and product team optimization.
The Leadership Laboratory operates nationwide with both in-person and virtual healthcare leadership development workshops. We proudly serve healthcare organizations around the world and throughout the United States across the country, including Chicago, New York, Boston, and San Francisco.
Strategic Considerations for Product & Engineering Team Development
The Leadership Laboratory's product and engineering leadership training integrates technical project management with team collaboration strategies, ensuring participants develop both the systematic thinking and interpersonal skills necessary for technical leadership advancement. We focus on building communication effectiveness across technical and non-technical stakeholders, agile leadership skills for iterative development cycles, and the emotional intelligence required to lead diverse technical personalities while maintaining high engineering standards and product quality.
Our methodology acknowledges that product and engineering teams face unique leadership opportunities including technical architecture decisions, product roadmap development, and code review processes that require specialized leadership understanding. We create workshop experiences that honor technical culture while introducing leadership concepts that enhance team productivity and technical innovation.
Our product and engineering leadership development workshops implement proven methodologies created specifically for technical environments, generating concrete improvements in technical team communication, collaborative development practices, and engineering leadership capabilities to inspire continuous technical excellence throughout your product and engineering organization.
Building tomorrow's leaders today.
The Leadership Laboratory works across multiple industries - including start-up and established technology firms, non-profit and government agencies, finance companies, healthcare organizations and more. We are proud to collaborate with individuals and teams of all sizes.
Contact us and say hello! We're excited to get to know you and share our ideas on learning + leadership development.
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Collaborating Partners
“I laughed harder than I have in a while!”
Our workshop was engaging, informative, rejuvenating and pure fun. I laughed harder than I have in a while! This was a phenomenal way to get more comfortable as a team.
— Director of People, SpotHero
“You made this easy to apply and implement”
You listened to our needs and adapted on the spot to incorporate leadership lessons. Every element was backed up by research, and you made this easy to apply and implement.
— VP / HEAD OF PEOPLE, WARBY PARKER
Meet Jacob Goldstein
Jacob Goldstein is the founder of The Leadership Laboratory, and leverages his experiences in education, the performing arts, and corporate learning & leadership development to his work. As a performer, Jacob has sung as a backup vocalist for musical artists such as Josh Groban, Idina Menzel, and Patti LuPone, as a recording artist for Netflix series Sense8, and at venues including The United Center, The Chicago Theater, and Chicago Symphony Center. In the education space, Jacob has served as an educator for high school, undergraduate and graduate students, and has been a Guest Lecturer at Northwestern University since 2016. As a Learning & Leadership Development Consultant, Jacob has worked as a one-on-one coach and group workshop facilitator to organizations ranging from startups to Fortune 500 companies in diverse industries, including technology, healthcare, non-profit, and fashion/apparel. Jacob holds a Bachelor’s degree from The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a Master’s of Science in Communication from Northwestern University.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Typical Size of Product and Engineering Leadership Development Workshops?
At The Leadership Laboratory, we customize each learning experience to align with your team and culture. Traditionally, we recommend between 20 – 30 participants per workshop, though often work with groups as small as 5 to as large as 5,000+. Knowing your audience size can help us to design a workshop partnership to maximize engagement and participation, and honor each participant at their respective knowledge and experience level.
Are Product and Engineering Teams Leadership Development Workshops Available Both In-Person and Virtually?
Yes! All of our programming can be facilitated on-site, virtually, or in a hybrid format (virtual facilitation to an in-person audience). For both on-site and virtual workshops, we traditionally recommend a lead time of 6 – 8 weeks to get your top choice of date for a facilitated partnership.
How Do We Choose Product and Engineering Teams Leadership Development Workshops?
When working with a new partner, we leverage a process called backwards design theory to curate a tailored learning experience. One of the first questions that we ask is “what would you like this audience to do differently as a result of this collaboration?” – in other words, what are the skills or behaviors you’d like this group to have, or the knowledge they want to possess?
Once we know and define these learning objectives, we can work backwards and partner with you to determine what content can support in making those goals a reality. For a sample list of workshops, feel free to check our Workshop + Experiments pages, or browse the Workshop by Industry or Workshops by Role pages for additional recommendations.
How Long are Product and Engineering Teams Leadership Development Workshops?
Each of our workshops is designed to be approximately 2.5 – 3 hours in length. For on-site partnerships, most groups opt for two back-to-back workshop topics to create a full day of learning. For teams looking for sessions outside of the standard length, please contact The Leadership Laboratory to discuss more customized options.
Can We Customize Product and Engineering Teams Leadership Development Workshops?
Yes! At The Leadership Laboratory, we leverage a process called backwards design theory to curate a tailored learning experience. As we collaborate with you to learn more about your goals, we can incorporate information about your team’s culture, organizational strategy, and industry trends to design an experience that truly resonates, with easy-to-apply concepts that lead to long-term, positive behavior change.
We know that each participant has their own unique learning goals, and have designed our leadership development experiences to customize our content to each person in the moment. We kick-off each workshop with an opportunity to learn more about the goals of each participant in the room, and align the experience to what is most top-of-mind for them. This differentiated learning allows us to adjust to each unique participant, as well as honor the diverse perspectives, roles, and experience in the room.
Does The Leadership Laboratory Work with Individual Product and Engineering Professionals?
At The Leadership Laboratory, most of our workshops are designed for teams or groups of leaders within organizations. As we focus on customizing each leadership development experience to the unique elements of each organization’s culture and team’s communication style, our work is focused on sessions that departments or groups within the same organization can participate in together, as opposed to sessions that individuals can sign up for on their own.
For individuals looking for one-on-one development, The Leadership Laboratory offers select executive coaching and thought partnership opportunities. Feel free to reach out directly for more information.