DETECT. DEVELOP. DEPLOY.
Forging a Leader Mindset
Create a High-Performance Culture by Changing How Your People Think
A live, virtual, small-group leadership development experience — 12 weekly sessions (kickoff + 10 + capstone) built on expertise, proven methods, and solid research on leadership, neuroscience, and human development — crafted for businesses and organizations who want to equip their emerging leaders.
WHY I DEVELOPED THIS COURSE
There Is Another Gear Available.
Almost 50 years of working in public accounting, industry, and education have shown me what statistics prove. There is a lot of productivity and profit left on the table — not because people don’t care, not because people aren’t doing their best, but because of underdeveloped leadership.
Leadership training is a multi-billion-dollar industry. Yet the surveys show year after year that only one-third of American workers are fully engaged. Most are working for the weekend — living unfulfilled lives with unmet potential. This is fine for describing my golf game, but not for a fellow human.
How do you measure the cost of dormant talent, misalignment, and flagging energy? As an expert (though misplaced — should have been a rock ’n’ roll star) bean counter, I know opportunity costs — the expenses of what might have been — are the hardest to account for. But disengagement is a real hit to your bottom line.
So I want you, your business, and your people to reach full potential. There is another gear available.
Photo: Memento Media / Unsplash
HOW YOUR BUSINESS WILL BENEFIT
Change Gears.
This learning experience will equip your managers, supervisors, emerging leaders, and high-potential employees to change the way they think about themselves, each other, and their teams — so your culture becomes infused with the positive energy that builds connections.
Workers who feel connected, have a sense of purpose, feel valued, and enjoy their work bring more of their energy and skill. Think how your productivity will soar if everyone kicks butt because they want to.
You want that? It takes skill.
1 in 3
workers are fully engaged. The other two are leaving potential — and profit — on the table every single day.
#1
reason good employees leave is their manager — not their pay, not their commute. Leadership is your best retention tool.
2×
the estimated cost of replacing one employee. Developing your leaders now costs a fraction of replacing the people they lose.
WHY THIS COURSE IS BETTER
Change from the Inside Out
Most people who attend excellent presentations on leadership feel inspired and motivated to improve. Then the demands and pressures of Monday morning hit, and it’s business as usual. Why? Two reasons. First, the science of learning proves it takes time to change. Second, culture eats everything else for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Culture changes when people think differently.
Forging a Leadership Mindset is not a flavor of the month — it brings change from the inside out. The problem with leadership development isn’t motivation. It’s method. Actual change requires a different experience — one built around iron sharpening iron, peer accountability, spaced learning, emotional engagement, and personal application. That’s what this group experience provides your team.
This isn’t a seminar. It’s a small group journey that uses the science of how the brain actually changes to help your people develop the mindsets and habits that last — and emboldens everyone to take on the mantle of leadership to positively and powerfully influence others, regardless of where their box is on the org chart.
This is not a class. It is an interactive, immersive learning experience that will be fun, funny, heartwarming, and intense. (Yes, all four. Sometimes in the same session.)
THE STRUCTURE
Three Arcs. One Transformation.
Three arcs — Detect, Develop, Deploy — form the organization of the curriculum. These are the same three steps we teach leaders to take with themselves and the people they lead. The course uses the framework that it teaches. That’s not a coincidence.
ARC ONE
Detect.
Exploring Mindsets & Paradigms
Before people can change how they lead, they must change how they think. This arc examines the foundational beliefs, mental models, and assumptions that either limit or fuel leadership potential.
Sessions 1 – 4
ARC TWO
Develop.
Discovering What Is Best
Great leaders see people clearly — their strengths, their trajectory, their unrealized potential, their dreams, their fears. This arc develops the mindsets and practices that equip leaders to bring out the best in everyone.
Sessions 5 – 7
ARC THREE
Deploy.
Taking Action to Change
Insight without action is just information. This arc teaches participants about the neuroscience of change, the skills to build a culture of connection, and the bias for action to put it all into practice.
Sessions 8 – 10
THE CURRICULUM
What You and Your Team Will Learn
Twelve weekly sessions, each one building on the last. Interactive discussions, group exercises, case studies, and individual assignments will make the learning stick. Here is what participants will cover and what they’ll be able to do differently.
★ Kickoff Session — Setting the Foundation
Participants align on why they’re here and what they want to become — establishing the trust, ground rules, and personal baseline that make the whole experience work. Includes a Connection Index assessment completed from both the leader’s perspective and the perspective of someone they lead or influence.
Arc One: Detect — Exploring Mindsets & Paradigms
Sessions 1 through 4
01 · Exploding 4 Myths That Keep Us from Our Leadership Potential
Examines and dismantles four widely held beliefs that cap leadership potential — including the myth that great leaders are born, not made — and replaces them with a foundation for complete engagement and real growth.
02 · The Power of Paradigms — How We See the World
Reveals how invisible assumptions and inherited mental models shape every leadership decision we make. Participants identify the paradigms that have been operating in the background — and learn to replace limiting ones with perspectives that unlock potential.
03 · What a Leader Mindset Is
Drawing on Daniel Goleman’s research on emotional intelligence and the six leadership styles from Primal Leadership, participants discover what the most effective leaders actually do — and why the coaching style is the only one where developing people is the goal, not a byproduct.
04 · Leadership vs. Management — Why the Difference Matters
Clarifies why promotion doesn’t make someone a leader — and what it takes to lead people rather than manage tasks or things. Examines the actual cost of low engagement and the multiplying power of strong leadership at every level.
Arc Two: Develop — Discovering What Is Best
Sessions 5 through 7
05 · The Pygmalion Effect — What You Expect Is What You Get
Explores the landmark Rosenthal and Jacobsen research: your expectations of people become self-fulfilling prophecies. Participants discover how high-expectation leadership works in practice — and learn the art of genuine encouragement as a leadership tool.
06 · Learning to Really See People
Develops the practice of knowing each person you lead as a full human being — their gifts, ambitions, fears, and trajectory. Uses Kim Scott’s Career Conversations framework (Radical Candor) and other resources to give participants a concrete, repeatable practice for going below the surface.
07 · Stewardship — Detect. Develop. Deploy.
Explains the roots of the DDD framework: the leadership posture of a steward who sees the gifts of others as a responsibility, not a resource. Participants wrestle with what it means to own the development of another person.
Arc Three: Deploy — Taking Action to Change
Sessions 8 through 10
08 · The Science of Real Change
Uses neuroscience such as the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve, neuroplasticity, and the role of dopamine in encoding — to explain why good intentions don’t create lasting change. Participants discover what actually works and recognize that this course has been built around those principles from the beginning.
09 · Creating a Culture That Connects
Translates individual leadership skills into team culture. Drawing on personal experience, Viktor Frankl, Simon Sinek, and others, participants learn how to create environments where people bring their full energy and purpose — and how to help the people they lead discover their own Why.
10 · Initiative and a Bias for Action
Equips participants to lead without waiting for permission — applying everything they’ve learned with confidence and courage. Participants leave ready to make the world better — one person at a time.
★ Capstone — Where We Go from Here: Your Personal Leadership Action Plan
Each participant develops a written personal leadership action plan — with vision, diagnosis, action steps, and a 90-day accountability structure. The group decides together how to keep the community going. This is the beginning of what comes next, not the end of the course.
“True leadership — in any context — is to help another person reach for their full potential.”
— Steve McNeely, CPA, M.B.A. · Speaker, Facilitator, Author
WHO THIS IS FOR
One Business. One Cohort. Real Change.
This course is for small businesses — run for one company, one team, or one department at a time. Your people learn together, which means the culture shifts together.
Your Managers & Supervisors
People who are already leading others and want (need) to do it with more skill, confidence, and impact — not just positional authority.
The People You’d Hate to Lose
Your best people who need to feel seen, invested in, and developed. They will feel valued and prepared for opportunities to come.
Your Future Leaders
People you know have more in them than their current role shows. Equip and empower them with a mind-changing foundation as they emerge.
Your Whole Team
Everyone who should speak the same language, pull in the same direction, and contribute to a high-performance culture — no matter their position.
THE EXPERIENCE
Designed to Stick
Every element of this program is intentional — built around how the brain actually learns and changes, not how training programs are traditionally designed.
🎥 Live, facilitator-led sessions delivered virtually — no recordings, no self-paced modules, no PowerPoint overload. Every session happens in real time with your cohort.
12
Weekly live sessions — one per week, including the capstone
8–12
Participants per cohort — small enough for real trust and honest conversation
90
Minutes per session — long enough to go deep, short enough to protect your team’s time
100%
Live and interactive — the conversation is the curriculum. No lectures. No passive learning.
ABOUT THE COURSE DEVELOPER & PRESENTER
Hi, Steve Here.
Steve McNeely
CPA, M.B.A. · Speaker · Facilitator · Author
I am the managing partner of a CPA firm and have management experience in industry and education. Having spent most of my career — now almost 50 years — counseling and helping small business leaders, I have seen what works and what doesn’t. I’ve experienced outstanding leaders and, what is the correct term? — effectiveness-challenged leaders. Okay, poor leaders. Results matter. Leadership matters.
I have been speaking about, writing about, and teaching about effective leadership for 30 years — on the side, especially during busy seasons. My passion for leadership development gestated from the context of first being a follower. (Ouch, some of that wasn’t fun.) I define true leadership — in any context — as helping another person reach for their full potential. So, my vision is a world of fulfilled potential. Imagine the joy, imagine the fulfillment, imagine the accomplishments. (Imagine the profit.)
I love teaching, especially in an interactive setting where we learn from each other. I have found that when we can touch each other emotionally and make each other laugh while we think, the learning sticks.
Every participant will have unique and beautiful gifts and insights — and I am excited to discover what I will learn from them.
Ready to Invest in Your People?
Let’s talk about bringing Forging a Leader Mindset to your organization — a cohort of your people who are ready to emerge.