Leadership Simulation Assessments for Key Leadership Roles

“LSA’s leadership simulation assessments for high stakes roles provided excellent insights to help identify and develop the key leaders best equipped to implement critical strategic growth shifts we needed to take our business to the next level.”
Vice President | Fortune 500 Technology Company

“I’m really impressed with the speed and accuracy of your leadership simulation assessment. It was very precise and has helped us to hone in on what truly matters most to develop our top sales leaders.”
Jordi Botifoll | Vice President EMEA | NetApp

Leadership Simulation Assessments to Accelerate Leadership Performance

Leadership is a force multiplier. It shapes financial performance, operational execution, employee engagement, and customer loyalty. Yet the evidence is clear: effective leadership is becoming increasingly difficult to identify, develop, and sustain.

Data from leadership simulation assessments consistently reveal a widening gap between leadership demands and leadership readiness. This is not an isolated finding.

The Corporate Executive Board estimates that 50% to 70% of new leaders underperform or fail within 18 months — regardless of whether they are external hires or internal promotions.
McKinsey adds another dimension: 90% of new executives report they would approach their transition differently if given the chance.

These outcomes are not simply the result of poor selection decisions. They reflect systemic issues — misaligned expectations, insufficient behavioral insight, and limited visibility into how leaders actually perform under pressure.

There is, however, a more precise way forward.

Targeted leadership simulation assessments leverage validated behavioral science, advanced analytics, and artificial intelligence to evaluate leaders in conditions that mirror real-world complexity. Rather than relying on interviews, resumes, or static competencies, these simulations surface how leaders think, decide, and act when it matters most. The result is a far more accurate prediction of leadership effectiveness — and a clearer roadmap for development.

The implications are significant. Leadership failure carries substantial cost — not only in recruitment, onboarding, and training investments, but also in lost momentum, diminished team performance, and strategic disruption. This is especially true for critical roles where replacement is difficult and the margin for error is small.

A more rigorous, evidence-based approach enables organizations to reduce that risk. It allows you to identify high-potential leaders with greater confidence, accelerate readiness for pivotal roles, and intervene early when gaps emerge.

The question is no longer whether leadership failure is costly — it is whether it is preventable.

With the right assessment strategy, you can move beyond reactive talent decisions and build a leadership bench that is both resilient and ready to perform.

Leadership Simulation Assessments for High Stakes Roles with 0.54 Predictive Validity
Each “day-in-the-life” assessment places leaders in a high-stakes simulation of their future or current role to measure their readiness using live role-players for a realistic simulation experience. Capabilities are benchmarked against a global pool of leaders in similar roles to provide additional data points for comparison.

Business readiness assessments target leaders and senior executives.

For High Stakes Leadership Hiring
Traditional hiring methods — including resumes and behavior-based interviews — offer an incomplete view of leadership capability. This becomes a critical liability when evaluating candidates for high-stakes leadership and people management roles, where the cost of a mis-hire is disproportionately high.

Leadership hiring simulations address this gap by creating a structured, scientifically validated, and objective environment in which both internal and external candidates must demonstrate their capabilities in action. Rather than inferring potential from past experiences, organizations can directly observe how candidates think, prioritize, communicate, and lead in scenarios that reflect the real demands of the role.

When combined with psychometric assessment, this approach generates a multidimensional view of leadership effectiveness that consistently outperforms traditional selection methods in predicting on-the-job success.

For High Stakes Leadership Development
Identifying and developing leadership capability for pivotal roles is inherently complex — and the margin for error is narrow when the stakes are high. Traditional development approaches often rely on incomplete data, making it difficult to pinpoint where leaders will excel, struggle, or stall.

Leadership development simulations offer a more precise alternative.

This research-backed approach integrates psychometric assessments — including personality and learning agility — with immersive, role-relevant simulations that reveal how leaders actually perform in context. The result is a nuanced, evidence-based view of leadership effectiveness measured against the specific competencies required for success in your organization.

The output is actionable. Each leader receives a tailored development plan designed to accelerate growth where it matters most. This enables targeted coaching, focused learning interventions, and more efficient allocation of development resources.
For High Stakes Leadership Succession Planning
Building a strong leadership bench is one of the most consequential — and often least precise — talent decisions organizations make. Identifying true high-potential leaders and accurately assessing successor readiness for critical roles requires more than subjective judgment or past performance indicators.

Leadership succession planning simulations bring rigor and objectivity to this process.

This evidence-based approach evaluates candidates against the specific leadership and people management capabilities required for success in your most strategic roles. By observing how individuals perform in realistic, role-aligned scenarios, organizations gain a clearer, more predictive view of who is ready now, who will be ready next, and where targeted development is required.

The structured methodology minimizes the influence of unconscious bias and personal preference, replacing opinion with data. This ensures that succession decisions are grounded in consistent, fair, and defensible criteria — aligned with your organization’s strategy and culture.

Beyond identification, the value extends to acceleration. These assessments enable you to forecast readiness with greater accuracy by mapping current capability against future role demands. Progress can be tracked over time, providing visibility into how leaders are developing and when they are prepared to step into more complex responsibilities.

Validated leadership assessment reports provide details about leadership readiness, performance, potential, skill gaps, bench strength, and suggested leadership development plans.

Expected Results
On average, leaders who follow the assessment-driven development plans:

Improve skills by 11% in twelve months.
Are 4 times more likely to seen as a high-performer.
Are 3 times more likely to experience rapid career growth.
Are 2 times more likely to retain staff.
Report a 14% increase in engagement.

Having assessed over 10,000 leaders in over 40 countries around the world, the leadership simulation assessment is available in Dutch, English, French, Korean, Spanish, and Turkish.

If you would like to use leadership simulation assessments for high stakes roles to better identify, promote, and develop key leadership talent to inform your most important talent decisions, please contact us.

Or check out our Sales Leader Simulation Assessment, Sales Rep Assessment Simulation, Midlevel Director Competency Assessment, or People Manager Assessment Center if you would like to assess your sales leaders, sales team, or people managers.

Related Information

We consider LSA Global the top outsourced learning and development partner.

We work closely with LSA to customize leadership and management development programs to meet our growing business needs.

I would highly recommend LSA to any company wanting to deliver high quality and practical learning solutions for their leaders and managers.

Terri Wright-Scheer
Vice President Human Resources

I continue to be impressed by the depth and breadth of LSA’s expertise in leadership development, and management development.

What a smart and client-centric group of great people who really know how to help leaders attract, engage, develop and retain top talent in a practical and results-driven manner.

Thank you LSA!

Tracy Esposito
Director, HR Business Partner

LSA exceeded all my expectations.

We interviewed 7 potential training and consulting partners and selected LSA due to their expertise, flexibility, and breadth and depth of leadership solutions.

We were able to design a highly customized, focused, and relevant management training program that fit our unique needs.

Our leaders and managers galvanized as a team and are better prepared for the rigors of a leading their teams in a very competitive and fast-changing market.

Mitch Mandich
CEO

For our go to training outsourcing partner, LSA provides exactly what we want and need – which is not an easy task.

As always, they design and deliver outstanding leadership development results and high quality management training programs that totally align with our unique business and talent strategies!

Elizabeth Siebert
Director, Organizational Excellence & Development

The quality of LSA’s Leadership Training Programs and facilitators is always top notch. We recognize and appreciate the hard work LSA always goes through to align to our unique culture and meet our specific requirements. Thank you for regularly going above and beyond. Your support and dedication, both on the strategic and tactical side, have been outstanding!

Anna Meyer
Leadership Development

We partnered with LSA Global to help us invest in our people. LSA custom designed an impactful management curriculum to help upskill our key managers and leaders.

We consider LSA to be our trusted learning and development partner and a valued extension of our team as we rapidly scale. Thank you LSA!

Lisa Bruun
SVP Human Resources

After a difficult search to find a partner that could address a very specific leadership development need, we chose LSA Global. They were responsive to our needs and created a highly customized solution that we continue to see results from. It is nice to know we have access to their expertise with a simple phone call.

Valerie Blackburn
Director of Business Operations

Having tripled in size and recently merged, LSA helped our executive team to increase our level of strategic alignment, to solidify our new direction, and to push our agency forward.

As we look to rapidly scale, the clear, actionable, and critical few strategic moves combined with how we differentiate ourselves to our top accounts and target clients has really set us on a great path to success.

This is exactly what we needed to get to the next level. Thank you LSA!

Matt Britton
CEO

We reviewed the top Leadership Development offerings and selected LSA’s 12-month Leadership Program based upon the value and systemic approach.

The feedback on the program, approach, and results was phenomenal. While other programs may be better known, the other options were more theoretical and did not compare in terms of LSA’s practicality, quality, and results.

We could not be happier.

Stacey Porter
Senior Manager Learning and Development

Thank you for a great leadership development session today. The facilitator was brilliant. The team got a lot out of it (as did I).

I believe it will help us create an even higher performance culture by ensuring we have a common understanding of how to create higher performance and work toward clear and common strategic goals.

Simon Jefferson
Managing Director

We contacted LSA to help us design and deliver customized management development programs. LSA worked with us to meet our exact needs. We started at the top with our executive team. It was such a great success that we rolled it out company-wide. We look forward to a long-term partnership with LSA Global and their team of experts.

Barry L. Byrd, SPHR
Human Resources Manager

Thank you so much for being the right person with the right experience and expertise to lead our Executive Team in re-examining our approach to change leadership.

I’m grateful for how you engaged and challenged us with so many “holy crap!” insights and realizations that we needed.

Jeff Nally
Chief Coaching Officer & CHRO

You have become our premier change leadership strategic partner. Your expertise in the human side of change is unparalleled and enabled our company to successfully implement our ERP Solution under challenging and ever-changing circumstances.

Thank you for your practical and outcome-oriented approach.

Ted Ramlet
CIO & SVP

Thanks for your incredible patience and passion working with our leadership team to create alignment.

Your leadership and executive coaching services have been one of the most effective I’ve ever known.

Debbie Von Raesfeld
Director and HR Business Partner

We have had a very beneficial partnership with LSA. Their recent Leadership Development Program helped us to identify, develop, and retain top leaders. It was instrumental in helping take our company and our key people to the next level. I would recommend them to anyone looking to truly develop and retain top talent.

Steve Janowsky
Vice President of Operations