This comparison is published by EM Accelerator, which is one of the two things being compared. Read it accordingly. What follows about LeadDev Together is taken from their own material, and there is a real case where it is the better choice.
LeadDev is not a small operation and it does not deserve a dismissive comparison. LDX3 is one of the better engineering leadership conferences running. Ryan Murphy, who runs EM Accelerator, has spoken at LeadDev and served two years on its programme committee, which involves reading a large pile of talk submissions about what engineering leaders are actually struggling with.
The difference that decides it
LeadDev Together is sold to organisations. The courses are remote and group-based, designed for a set of leaders from the same company to go through together, mixing content from industry leaders with guided discussion between the people in the cohort. Two of them are Pillars of Engineering Management and Nurturing Effective Engineering Teams.
EM Accelerator is sold to individuals. One manager, monthly or annually, usually expensed and often not.
That is not a quality difference. It is a shape difference, and it settles most of the choice before the content comes into it at all.
For a VP with a training budget and four managers who need the same thing at the same time, a group cohort is the better instrument. The discussion happens between people who share a context, a codebase and a set of politics. They know which director you mean. A membership cannot replicate that, because its community is a room of managers from everywhere rather than a room of managers from one company.
For a single manager with something on their desk that needs handling this week, a group programme is the wrong instrument. It runs when it runs, it needs an organisation to buy in first, and the wait is a purchasing decision standing between a person and help with something happening now.
Where LeadDev Together is stronger
Credibility that travels. LeadDev is an established name in engineering leadership. Something on a development plan that a VP recognises without explanation is worth a great deal, and no membership carries that weight yet.
Shared context. Working through it alongside colleagues means the discussion lands on the actual situation rather than a generalised version of it. Nothing in a mixed-company membership does that.
The wider ecosystem. The conferences, the talks, the writing. It is a far larger body of material to be plugged into than one person’s programme.
Where EM Accelerator is stronger
It starts immediately. No cohort dates and no purchasing cycle. That matters more than it sounds three weeks into a job that is not going well, because the honest alternative to starting now is usually starting never.
It does not stop. A cohort finishes, and then the next problem arrives six weeks later with nothing attached to it. A membership carries on: new courses, monthly deep dives, office hours, and somewhere to put yesterday’s mess in front of people who have handled it.
It covers one job rather than all of leadership. Everything in it sits at the altitude of one team and one difficult person, rather than org design and headcount planning.
The price sits in a different bracket. $79 a month or $790 a year, which most people expense without needing to build a case. LeadDev does not publish Together pricing publicly, which usually indicates it is quoted per engagement and sized for an organisation. That is how group programmes are normally sold, and it does mean the two are not competing for the same pound.
Which one fits
LeadDev Together, if the company is buying, several managers need it together, and working through it with colleagues is worth waiting for a start date. That is a good reason rather than a consolation prize.
EM Accelerator, if it is one manager, starting today matters, and something that keeps going beats something that finishes.
Doing both is a legitimate answer rather than a fence-sit. Take the cohort if the company will fund it, and keep a membership underneath for the weeks in between, when something goes wrong and the cohort is not running.
What neither can do
Neither of these makes anyone a good manager. There are untrained managers who are better natural leaders than most trained ones, and there are people who finish excellent programmes and change nothing about how they run a Tuesday.
What training does is provide language for what is happening and a system to fall back on when the day has gone badly. That is genuinely worth paying for. It is not the same as caring about the people involved, and nobody has worked out how to sell that.
For anyone still deciding what kind of training the situation calls for, engineering manager training sets out all five formats, including the ones neither of these two sell.
