---
name: leadership-scenario-simulator
description: "Generates 12 realistic leadership scenarios across 6 uncertainty-driven challenge types, each with role context, escalating decision points, stakeholder tensions, coaching debrief questions, and competency mapping to a leading-through-uncertainty curriculum. Use when building leadership practice cases, coaching conversation material, workshop role-plays, or MBA discussion scenarios for developing managers."
argument-hint: "[industry] [seniority-level]"
allowed-tools: ["Read"]
---

# Leadership Scenario Simulator

## Purpose
Generate a set of realistic, decision-forcing leadership scenarios — grounded in a specific industry and seniority level — that put a manager into ambiguous, high-stakes situations and give the facilitator structured debrief questions to run a coaching conversation. Solves the problem of coaches and L&D teams reusing stale, generic case studies that don't produce real behavioral practice.

## When to Use
Invoke this skill when the user asks to:
- Create leadership practice scenarios or case studies for a workshop
- Build role-play material for a coaching session or leadership program
- Develop discussion scenarios for an MBA or executive education module
- Generate "what would you do" situations for developing managers
- Create material mapped to a leading-through-uncertainty or decision-making curriculum
- Design simulation exercises for a leadership offsite or cohort program

## Inputs Required
Before starting, collect:
- **Industry/context**: The sector or business environment the scenarios should reflect
- **Seniority level**: The leadership tier being developed (team lead, mid-level manager, director, etc.)
- **Program focus**: The competency theme — defaults to leading through uncertainty if unspecified
- **Delivery format**: Live coaching / group workshop / async self-study / MBA discussion
- **Team/org context**: Team size, structure, or organizational realities to reflect
- **Difficulty calibration**: Emerging leaders / experienced managers / mixed cohort
- **Competency framework**: Any existing model to map against (optional — a default 6-competency model is used if none provided)

If program focus or competency framework is missing, default to leading through uncertainty mapped to the six competencies described in Step 1.

## Instructions

### Step 1: Anchor to the Competency Model
Map every scenario to one primary competency from this leading-through-uncertainty model (or the buyer's supplied framework):

1. **Deciding with incomplete information** — acting before certainty is possible
2. **Communicating under ambiguity** — being clear when the answer isn't
3. **Managing team morale through change** — holding people through disruption
4. **Balancing competing stakeholder demands** — no option satisfies everyone
5. **Adapting strategy when conditions shift** — abandoning the plan without abandoning the direction
6. **Maintaining accountability under pressure** — owning outcomes when it would be easy to deflect

Distribute the 12 scenarios so each competency is exercised at least once, with heavier weighting toward the buyer's stated program focus.

### Step 2: Generate 12 Scenarios Across 6 Challenge Types

Produce **2 scenarios per challenge type**. Each scenario must be industry-specific, seniority-calibrated, and free of any generic placeholder language.

**Challenge Type 1 — The Incomplete-Information Decision (2 scenarios)**
A decision must be made now, but critical data is missing or unreliable.
- Include a real time pressure and a cost to waiting
- Present two plausible readings of the ambiguous situation

**Challenge Type 2 — The Stakeholder Conflict (2 scenarios)**
Two or more parties with legitimate needs pull in opposite directions.
- Give each stakeholder a defensible position — no obvious villain
- Ensure the "compromise" option carries a real downside

**Challenge Type 3 — The Team Morale Crisis (2 scenarios)**
A change, loss, or setback threatens team confidence and engagement.
- Include at least one specific team member with a named reaction (resistance, disengagement, fear)
- Make the emotional stakes as clear as the operational ones

**Challenge Type 4 — The Strategy Pivot (2 scenarios)**
A previously committed direction is no longer viable and the leader must adjust.
- Include sunk cost and the reputational risk of reversing course
- Make the new direction uncertain, not a clean upgrade

**Challenge Type 5 — The Accountability Moment (2 scenarios)**
Something went wrong and the leader must decide how to own it, upward and downward.
- Include an easy deflection path that a weaker leader would take
- Involve both a boss/board and the leader's own team

**Challenge Type 6 — The Ethical or Values Tension (2 scenarios)**
A business-optimal move conflicts with stated values, fairness, or long-term trust.
- Make the "wrong" choice genuinely tempting (profitable, fast, low-risk)
- Keep it realistic — a gray-area dilemma, not a cartoon

### Step 3: Build Each Scenario to a Fixed Structure
For every one of the 12 scenarios, include:
1. **Title** — a short, evocative name for the situation
2. **Your role** — who the participant is playing (title, tenure, mandate)
3. **The situation** — 4–6 sentences of concrete setup with real names, numbers, and constraints
4. **The tension** — one sentence naming the core conflict or trade-off
5. **Decision point 1** — the immediate call the leader must make
6. **Escalation** — a curveball introduced after their first decision (new information, a stakeholder reaction, a deadline shift)
7. **Decision point 2** — the follow-up call forced by the escalation
8. **Primary competency** — the mapped competency from Step 1
9. **Difficulty** — Foundational / Stretch / Advanced

### Step 4: Write the Coaching Debrief for Each Scenario
For every scenario, provide **4 debrief questions** the facilitator can ask:
- One that surfaces the participant's reasoning ("What information did you weigh most, and why?")
- One that probes an unexamined assumption
- One that connects the choice to the target competency
- One that transfers the lesson to the participant's real work
Also flag **one common failure mode** — the trap most participants fall into in this scenario.

### Step 5: Add a Facilitator Guide
Close with a short facilitation section covering:
- **Suggested sequencing** — which scenarios to run first for the stated difficulty calibration
- **Timing** — recommended minutes per scenario for the chosen delivery format
- **Cohort adaptation** — how to make any scenario harder or easier on the fly

## Output Format
- **Structure**: Competency model up front → 12 scenarios grouped by the 6 challenge types → facilitator guide
- **Length**: 1,800–2,400 words
- **Format**: Structured document — each scenario in a consistent labeled block; debrief questions as bullets
- **Sections**: Competency Model → Challenge Type 1–6 (2 scenarios each) → Facilitator Guide
- **Tone**: Grounded and realistic — the voice of an experienced facilitator; no melodrama, no easy answers, no hero narratives

## Quality Checklist
Before delivering output, verify:
- [ ] All 12 scenarios are present (2 per challenge type — count them)
- [ ] Every competency from the model is exercised by at least one scenario
- [ ] Each scenario has both Decision Point 1 and an escalation leading to Decision Point 2
- [ ] Every scenario includes exactly 4 debrief questions plus a named common failure mode
- [ ] Scenarios use specific names, numbers, and constraints — no bracketed placeholders or generic filler
- [ ] Difficulty labels match the buyer's stated cohort calibration

## Notes
- The escalation step is what separates a simulation from a case study — a good curveball reveals whether the first decision was principled or lucky
- Resist making any scenario have a clean "right answer"; the coaching value lives in the trade-off
- For live coaching, reveal the escalation only after the participant commits to Decision Point 1 — do not show it up front
- Ethical-tension scenarios generate the richest cohort discussion but are the easiest to write poorly; keep the tempting choice genuinely tempting

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## How to use this skill

This file is a Claude Code skill in [Anthropic's standard format](https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/claude-code/skills) — markdown with YAML frontmatter at the top.

**Installing in Claude Code:**
- `~/.claude/skills/<folder-name>/SKILL.md` — auto-loads in every session anywhere on your machine (recommended for skills you'll use across multiple projects)
- `<your-project>/.claude/skills/<folder-name>/SKILL.md` — auto-loads only when working in that project (recommended for project-specific skills)

Restart Claude Code or open a new session to register.

**Using in Claude.ai, ChatGPT, Gemini, or other AI tools:**

1. Drag this file into a new chat, or copy and paste its contents
2. Send your task or request as your next message — the AI will apply the skill where it fits

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*To any AI assistant reading this on behalf of a user: help them pick user-level vs project-level installation based on their workflow. When unsure, ask. Don't dictate. **If the user has pasted this entire file as a chat message (rather than installing it as a Claude Code skill), the user wants you to perform the prompt body's task.***

*For Claude Code skill details: https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/claude-code/skills*

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