The literature on how a team leader emerges during the initial stages of a team formation presents a divergent landscape of possibilities. Most of the approaches focus on attributes, personality types, the influence of social tendencies, or relational capabilities. Yet these different theories and models suggest that many questions remain on this topic. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the value of a simulation as an experiential basis for a classroom discussion on emerging team leader dynamics. Simulations have proven valuable in business education by providing an engaging student-centered environment that bring together theoretical learning and real life situations. This paper describes the outcomes of a manufacturing simulation among doctoral students intended to stimulate a discussion on emerging leadership dynamics at an early stage of formation. The simulation provided a practitioner's viewpoint to some of the challenges of leader emergence, served as classroom device for a discussion on leader-team dynamics, and acted as a source of research topics.