You’ve seen the 6 types.

Now learn to lead all six.

The CQ Engineering Leadership Academy is a 6-week live cohort for Engineering Managers and Tech Leads. Map your team, prevent conflicts before they start, and stop losing your week to miscommunication.

Starts January 26, 2027 · 6 live calls with me · 17 short video lessons · about 2 hours a week · limited to 30 leaders.

The people manual nobody gave you when you got “congrats, good luck.”

Enrollment closes in:

In 6 weeks, you’ll stop guessing how to reach each person on your team, and start leading them the way they actually work.

✅ Know your own default style, its blind spot, and what you need to stay calm under pressure

✅ Read every person on your team, and spot distress days before it turns into a resignation or a blow-up

✅ Diagnose the real cause of a conflict in minutes, instead of fighting the same fire every sprint

✅ Run 1:1s, kickoffs, and hard conversations with clear agreements, so “I thought you meant…” disappears

✅ Lead your team through change without losing your best people

The truth is...

You don’t need a personality change. You need frameworks. People aren’t a mystery to solve with more patience. They’re a pattern you can learn, just like any system.

What You're Getting Inside CQ Engineering Leadership Academy:

A 6-week cohort built on the three pillars of the CQ Leadership Method: PCM®, Three-Level Contracting, and the Wheel of Conflict. Learn it on your own time, then practice it live with me and a small group of engineering leaders.

✅ Day 1: a new module unlocks. 2–3 short videos, 30–45 minutes in total.

✅ Mid-week: a 60-minute live Zoom call with me, where we work on your actual situations.

✅ End of week: one practical exercise on your real team, 20–30 minutes.

About 2–2.5 hours a week. Built for people with a full calendar.

Week by week

Week 1: Know Yourself (PCM® Foundations)

-> The 6 PCM® types and what each one needs to do great work

-> Your own Base: your strengths, your blind spot, and the Mike case study

-> Map your own “Condo”: the battery bar for each type

Live call: Meet Your Base. Your questionnaire debrief, real examples from your work, and your “spot a type” homework.

Week 2: Read the Room (Others & Distress)

-> How each type shows up at its best in a tech team

-> The 3 distress patterns (Attacker, Drooper, Blamer) and their early warning signs

-> Getting back to OK-OK, with de-escalation moves for each type

Live call: Spotting Distress Before It Escalates. We diagnose real moments from your team and practice redirect phrases in pairs.

Week 3: Contract Like a Leader (Three-Level Contracting)

-> Why “Any questions?” fails, and what it costs you

-> The 3 levels: administrative, professional, and psychological

-> Scripts for a new-hire 1:1, feedback situation, a project kickoff, and recontracting after a missed deadline

Live call: Contract It Live. Role-play your own script for a real upcoming conversation.

Week 4: Prevent Conflict (The Wheel of Conflict)

-> The 5 types of conflict, with tech examples: Structure, Data, Interest, Values, Relations

-> Diagnosing Mike’s conflict with his boss

-> The 5-step diagnosis: stop, don’t assume, gather data, name the type, choose the right lever

Live call: Diagnose Your Real Conflict. Bring one unresolved conflict, and we’ll walk it through the Wheel together.

Week 5: Lead Through Change

-> Why change fails so often in tech teams

-> The change playbook: communication, training, and rollout, tailored to each type

Live call: Change-Proof Your Team. Map a real change and spot where each type will struggle.

Week 6: Make It Automatic

-> Daily habits that build CQ without extra effort

-> Your CQ dashboard: what to measure and who supports you

-> Your personal 90-day implementation plan

Live call: Graduation & Commitment. Your 90-day commitment, hot-seat coaching, and your certificate.

Everything you get:

✅ 6 live 60-minute coaching calls with me (recorded, so you never miss one)

✅ 17 video lessons (about 4 hours in total)

✅ The PCM® Questionnaire and your personal reports

✅ 6 worksheets you’ll keep using: Condo map, distress log, Wheel diagnosis, contracting scripts, change map, 90-day CQ dashboard

✅ A private community of engineering leaders between calls

✅ Certificate of completion

Ready to lead the team you have, not the one you wish you had?

Is this for you?

This is for you if you:

✓ Lead engineers as an Engineering Manager, Tech Lead, Team Lead, Head of Engineering, or CTO

✓ Were promoted from IC and never got real training for the people side

✓ Have 1:1s that feel like status updates, and feedback that lands differently every time

✓ Want practical tools you can use on Monday, not more leadership theory

It’s not for you if you:

✗ Want someone to “fix” one difficult person for you. This changes how you lead the whole team.

✗ Can’t give it about 2 hours a week for 6 weeks. The live practice is where it sticks.

What is the people side already costing you?

🔈 One senior engineer leaving costs months of salary to replace, plus the knowledge that walks out with them. Most of them don’t leave the company. They leave the way they were led.

🔈 47% of tech leaders feel emotionally drained at work every single week, and 22% are at critical burnout levels.

🔈 Poor communication costs about $7,171 per employee a year. Multiply that by your team size.

Sources are listed in my book, From Code to People.

What leaders say after working with me:

I highly recommend Aleksandra's trainings on communication for data and analytics professionals!

What stood out for me was Alex's flexibility in adapting the content to the audience: thanks to broad expertise, she didn't have to follow a strict script, but could provide additional context and frameworks (e.g., ok-ok framework, workstyles categories) as needed.

What I see as the most important outcome of the training is that I already see a behavior change in my team: they are excited about getting more speaking opportunities and want to continue developing their communication skills. This would be extremely hard to achieve with off-the-shelf training.

Thank you, Alex, for a great learning experience!

Magdalena Krupa

Director, Global Data Science & Visualisation @Reckitt

I had the pleasure of participating in several leadership trainings led by Aleksandra, and she is truly one of the best trainers I’ve met in my professional journey.

Her Leadership Academy sessions were practical, well-structured, and grounded in real leadership challenges. Working with the PCM model was a game-changer for me — it genuinely blew my mind. It helped me better understand my own communication patterns, how I function under stress, and how to regulate myself more effectively.

I highly recommend Aleksandra to anyone who wants to grow as a leader and elevate their communication skills in a meaningful and practical way.

Elżbieta Rytel

Resource Manager, Testing Competency Center @SII Poland

I'm happy to recommend Aleksandra as wonderful trainer, able to inspire, teach and explain all the hard parts of leader's job. I was lucky to take part few training lead by her. Also she's a great colleague, always positive and open minded person.

Tomasz Prazuch

Engineering Team Lead @expondo

What’s it worth to keep your best people?

Think about the last time someone good left your team. The months of hiring. The onboarding. The knowledge that walked out the door. The weeks you spent covering their work.

Now think about the conversations that keep going sideways. The meetings that end without a decision. The feedback that lands like an attack on one person and doesn’t register with another.

You can keep figuring this out alone. I did, for years, and it cost me far more time than I’d like to admit. Using other people’s experience isn’t laziness. It’s strategic.

The CQ Engineering Leadership Academy is $997, or 4 monthly payments of $297. That’s less than one week of a senior engineer’s salary, and it’s the kind of investment most companies will cover from the training budget.

Choose how you’d like to pay:

Pay in full or spread it over 4 months. Either way, you get the same program, the same calls and the same bonuses.

PAY IN FULL

BEST VALUE

$997 (save $191)

4-MONTH

PAYMENT PLAN

4 × $297

Want your company to pay? You’ll get an invoice in your company’s name. Here’s a short email you can send your manager: ASK YOUR MANAGER / L&D TEMPLATE.

Join before the end of January 15, and you also get:

BONUS #1

A Team Map Template ($97 Value)

The template I use with clients to map every person on your team: their type, what motivates them, how to delegate to them, and how to give them

BONUS #2

3 months in the CQ Leaders Inner Circle ($141 Value)

Most training fades a few weeks after it ends. The Inner Circle keeps it alive: live monthly calls with engineering leaders, extra materials, and a place to bring new challenges.

No automatic renewal. After 3 months, you choose whether to stay.

BONUS #3

(first 10 people only) A 30-minute 1:1 Team Map review with me

We go through your team map together and pick the first two changes to make.

Your team runs on six operating systems. Let’s make sure you can lead all of them.

Guarantee

Try the first two weeks with no risk.

Watch the Week 1 and 2 modules, join both live calls, and do the exercises.

If by the end of Week 2 you don’t feel this is changing how you lead, email me, and I’ll refund you in full. No forms, no awkward questions.

Who is going to run the Academy?

I’m Alex: a former violinist, management engineer, and organizational psychologist, and the author of From Code to People.

For more than 10 years, I’ve worked inside engineering and data teams. I’ve trained 5,000+ tech leaders and ICs across 30+ companies, delivered 2,000+ hours of workshops and 400+ hours of 1:1 mentoring, and hosted 200+ episodes of the Leman Tech Leadership Podcast.

I built the CQ Leadership Method on the Process Communication Model® and Transactional Analysis, translated into the language of standups, PRs and 1:1s. I help tech leaders create teams their people don’t want to leave.

FAQ

How much time does it take?

About 2–2.5 hours a week: 30–45 minutes of video, 20–30 minutes of practice on your real team, and a 60-minute live call.

What if I miss a live call?

Every call is recorded and shared within 24 hours. You can also post your question in the community, and I’ll answer it there.

When are the live calls?

Tuesdays at [6 PM CET / 12 PM EST], from January 26 to March 2.

Can my company pay for it?

Yes. You can get an invoice in your company’s name, and I’ve written a short email you can send to your manager / L&D team to ask. You can find it here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1o8n1WENscUlmiBzIbbxCB4rxLm7IPjpP/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=113549499819614991915&rtpof=true&sd=true

I read From Code to People. Is this the same thing?

The book gives you the method. The Academy is where you apply it to your own team, with live coaching, practice, and feedback.

I’m a brand new manager. Is this too early?

It’s the best time. You’ll build the right habits before the wrong ones set in.

Is this a personality test that puts people in boxes?

No. The types describe how someone prefers to communicate, not who they are. It’s a starting map that helps you adapt, not a label.

How many people are in the cohort?

A maximum of 30. Every call includes small breakout groups of 3–5, so there’s room for your real situations every week.

What language is it in?

English.

What if it’s not right for me?

See the two-week guarantee above.

Please read before you decide anything!

I’ll never forget the day I became a leader for the first time.

It was late June, super hot, and I was sitting in my boss’s office. She made me Team Leader of L&D. A little raise, a nice new title. Then: “Good luck, you’re going to do great.” That was the end of the conversation.

No preparation. No training. No mentor. And here’s the irony: I was the person training other leaders in that company.

So I made a decision: I’m going to be the leader I always wanted to have.

Well, yes and no.

It took me years to see what was wrong with that plan. Being the leader you wanted to have sounds generous. But your people aren’t you. It’s selfish. I learned that the hard way, and it cost me time, energy, and people I could have led much better.

It was never about me. It was the system. Nobody had given me one. So I built it, and I want to spare you the years of trial and error.

You don’t have to figure this out alone.

Let’s do it together, Alex

Enrollment closes on January 18. 30 seats.

Contact Us

Mail us at: [email protected]

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