Guide, Don’t Drive™ - The Leadership Framework Leaders Actually Use

Develop leaders people want to follow. If you’re still pushing, pulling, or micromanaging, you’re bleeding performance. Guide, Don’t Drive™ flips the script fast.

Leaders Trained

Reduction in Turn Over

Increase in Manager Confidence

The Problem → The Promise

The Problem

Traditional leadership is broken. Most programs teach leaders to drive harder, push more, and manage tighter. The result? Burned out leaders. Disengaged teams. People doing the minimum to survive.

The Promise

Guide Don’t Drive™ is different. This framework equips leaders to stop driving people and start guiding them. The result? Leaders who grow people, teams that take ownership, and cultures where people choose to give their best.

The 12 Pillars of Guide, Don't Drive™

These are the behaviors that turn managers into leaders people actually want to follow.

Give Trust First

Most leaders make people earn trust, but that only creates fear and hesitation. Guides flip it: they give trust up front, model vulnerability, and earn respect by helping people grow.
“If you make people earn trust, they’ll act like renters, not owners.”

From Driving to Guiding

Driving squeezes results out of people - but only gets compliance. Guiding creates commitment. The Guide Pathway™ shows the six steps leaders must take to move from control to influence.
“Driving gets compliance. Guiding earns commitment.”

Know Your People

You can’t grow who you don’t know. Most leaders manage tasks but never really understand the people behind them. Guides uncover motivators, goals, and values - leading with care before candor.
“Care earns you the right to be candid.”

Grow Your People

Leadership isn’t about managing projects - it’s about multiplying people. Guides help others define what matters, stretch them past comfort, and support them along the way.
“Your real job isn’t managing tasks - it’s multiplying people.”

Stop Solving Their Problems

Leaders love to fix. It feels fast, but it kills growth. Every time you solve it for them, you steal their chance to think, own, and grow. Guides coach with questions and build thinkers instead of dependents.
“Every time you solve it for them, you steal their chance to grow.”

Make Accountability Positive

Accountability isn’t punishment - it’s clarity plus ownership. Guides make accountability empowering by setting crisp roles, clear agreements, and building peer-to-peer responsibility.

“Accountability isn’t a hammer - it’s a mirror.”

Lead with Emitional Intelligence

Smart leaders fail without EQ. Guides master themselves first - building self-awareness, empathy, and resilience. That steadiness creates credibility people can trust, especially under pressure.
“If you can’t lead yourself, you’ll never lead anyone else.”

Say What Needs to Be Said

Nice leaders avoid conflict. Kind leaders tell the truth with care and candor. Guides use tough conversations to build growth and trust, not drama and avoidance.
“Nice keeps the peace. Kind tells the truth.”

Make it Clear

People can’t win if they don’t know what winning looks like. Guides anchor work in purpose, cascade goals, focus on the vital few, and measure what matters.
“Ambiguity kills ownership. Clarity creates champions.”

Guide Through Change

Driving change builds resistance. Guiding change builds buy-in. Guides lead people through change with trust, clarity, and rhythm that turns disruption into progress.
“Push change and people dig in. Guide change and people buy in.”

Lead with Discipline

Leadership isn’t about intensity once in a while - it’s about consistency every day. Guides raise their own ceiling, model integrity, and build resilience that teams can count on.
“Your people can’t outgrow you. Raise your ceiling.”

Win or Lose Together

Teams don’t fall apart from big failures - they crumble from silos and finger-pointing. Guides design shared fate: we win or we don’t. The result? Unity, accountability, and stronger results.
“If the team loses, you didn’t win either.”
Write your awesome label here.

Why Most Training Fails

(and How We Make it Stick)

The usual story:
  • It’s all talk, no tools - inspiring, but nothing changes on Monday.
  • It’s too long and too theoretical - managers can’t (or won’t) use it.
  • There’s no follow-through - no rhythm, no scoreboards, no accountability. 
Our approach fixes all three.

The Guide, Don't Drive™ Delivery System

IGNITE - Keynote that starts the shift

A bold, practical message that moves leaders from driving to guiding - and sets the language your org will use going forward.
Leaders leave with: the Three Shifts and one action to take this week.

EQUIP - Hands-on workshop with real tools

We practice the Pillars, not just discuss them: 7-Step Learning Conversations, Baker’s Dozen coaching questions, Clarity & Commitments, OKR mini-canvas.
Leaders leave with: scripts, scorecards, and micro-habits they can use in their very next 1:1.

EMBED - Microlearning that fits real work

5–7 minute videos with “Do-This-Now” actions. Learn on the fly; apply in the next meeting.
Leaders leave with: quick wins that compound into behavior change.

SUSTAIN - Coaching + operating rhythm

Bi-weekly check-ins, simple OKRs/KPIs, and leader huddles keep the change alive.
Leaders leave with: a repeatable cadence (not a one-off event).

ASSIST - Steve Lowisz's Digital Mind (24/7)

An always-on, interactive coach trained on the Guide, Don’t Drive™ framework - available by text, voice, or video whenever a leader gets stuck.

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