Affordable learning resources for engineers who want to be better leaders.
If the fear of saying or doing the wrong thing as a leader terrifies you, that fear is holding you back from being an effective leader.
YOU ARE NOT ALONE!
Get anytime access to my growing collection of workshops and exclusive content for a flat monthly rate.
The Big Lie
Meet Jacob. He spent years in engineering school learning the fundamentals of his discipline. Once in industry, Jacob’s career took off. He made a name for himself as a successful engineer—someone his manager could always count on for reliable, high quality analysis. So he promoted Jacob to team lead.
We meet Jacob’s all the time: great individual contributors who are promoted into leadership positions based on the premise that a great engineer will instantly and automatically be a great leader.
That’s the BIG LIE.
It took years of formal education and practical experience to get good at engineering, but for some reason organizations believe anyone can be a good leader overnight.
While that sometimes may be true, “sometimes” is not a reliable strategy. Good leadership takes practice, and that’s what LOL offers: practical strategies and hands-on learning. It’s also a chance to practice these strategies with a safety net so you can be confident you’ll get it right when you use the strategies with your team.
My name is Sean. I have over 20 years of experience working as an engineer in industry. I’ve met people like Jacob many times. People like Jacob have been my boss. It was not a pleasant experience. That’s why I created Lead Out Loud.
Over the years, I started paying attention to what bad leadership looks like. I used my education and experience in continuous improvement to create strategies and tools to help myself be a better leader.
That’s Where LOL Comes In
My strategies mix principles of Agile project management, improv comedy, and continuous improvement to help people learn through a process of “messy learning.” The idea is to fail quickly in a safe environment so you’re more prepared to effectively lead when when and where it counts.
But none of this means anything if it’s too complex for people to understand or too expensive for people to afford. So I’ve created the LOL Lounge where members can access all of my learning content on-demand. The content:
is organized into easily digestible learning modules.
includes videos with stories, practice exercises, and wisdom from me and other industry experts.
is the same stuff I teach graduate engineering management students, but at a fraction of the cost.
Lead Out Loud helps technical professionals overcome fear and avoid ineffective leadership practices. These technical professionals work at companies like these:
What is included in the LOL Lounge?
I’m adding new content monthly. Here’s what’s there now:
Leadership Essentials
What Color Is Your Fire Hydrant: Improving Engineering Communication
How To Use AI Effectively As A Student (coming in May)
Tailored for Engineers
You don’t have to be an engineer to benefit from Lead Out Loud. The content and strategies are helpful for anyone who works in a technical role or who has been otherwise trained to be accurate, precise, and data-driven. The unique set of skills you have presents distinct challenges when it comes to leadership. The LOL Lounge curates content and strategies to address these specific challenges, equipping you with the necessary tools and strategies to become an outstanding engineering leader.
Empowering Students With Confidence
Lead Out Loud gives students an advantage in school, offering a head start for those returning and extra help for those already enrolled.
Practical Strategies
LOL strategies delve deep into practical real-life scenarios commonly faced by engineering leaders. From decision-making to conflict resolution, you will explore proven strategies to handle challenging situations, ensuring you thrive in any leadership role.
Unlock Your Engineering Leadership Potential
Live workshops are limited to small cohorts.
Don't let a lack of confidence or experience hold you back from becoming the exceptional engineering leader we know you can be. Take the first step towards empowering yourself and inspiring others!
Invest in yourself, and become the confident engineering leader you were destined to be. Remember, leadership is a skill you can learn, and the LOL Lounge is here to help you succeed!
Unlock your true leadership potential today!
Keep In Touch
Frequently Asked Questions
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There are many venues and improv programs that play off the phrase “laugh out loud.” Lead Out Loud is both a play on words (Lead) and an homage to improv comedy (Out Loud).
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Leadership Essentials is an immersive workshop experience designed for great engineers who want to be effective leaders.
Using techniques from improv comedy, Agile software development, and great literary works such as Goldilocks and the Three Bears, it provides a safe environment for participants to practice what “messy learning.” Put simply, it’s failure without consequence.
Fail in a workshop so you can succeed with your team.
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Live Leadership Essentials workshops are designed as three one-hour modules. The rest of the LOL Lounge content is designed to be reviewed in chunks of ~15 minutes or less.
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Absolutely! Lead Out Loud workshops are conducted in cohorts. Each cohort has 5-6 people in it. For larger teams, multiple cohorts are used.
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The idea of failing fast is to find what doesn’t work as quickly as possible so you can invest in what does work.
Software developers use a project management methodology called Agile to break down work into small chunks called “sprints.” Each sprint is usually very short—a week or two—and intended to bring a new feature to life based on customer needs. By breaking down work into these sprints, if something isn’t right—doesn’t work, not what the customer wanted, etc.—the only time lost is however long the sprint was. Rather than scrapping an entire project worth of work, the team can pivot and fix what failed with minimal losses.
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Yes! Join the LOL Lounge to check out the content. If you’d like to arrange for a live workshop with your team, just reach out.