Through hard work and much trial and error, I have experienced tremendous success as a transformative leader. I have documented what has worked and what hasn't. The result is a proven playbook that can be employed by every company ready for true transformational change.

The first opportunity to draft my full playbook presented itself when Intuit hired me to transform the engineering team and move the company to an online platform. The success of that transformation prompted Intuit's leadership to request that I lead a transformation of the people, processes, and platforms of their 180-person tax content team.

"Mamie, whatever and however you did it with the engineering team," they told me, "we want you to do the same thing for the tax content team."

And that's what I did, although one of my senior leaders took the reins and implemented the playbook this time. Vinod had been my right-hand person through the engineering transformation -- he had learned it, lived it, and experienced its triumph, and he was eager to follow the same roadmap to success for the tax team.

We all know that not everyone (very few) will jump on board a significant change at its onset. The changes we were proposing were no different. One skeptic was a long-time employee who had bthrough multiple changes with multiple consulting firms -- none of which proved successful.

David did not believe the transformation we proposed could be accomplished. As Vinod continued to guide the team through the playbook, David began to experience the wins and realize the level of autonomy and ownership he and his team were given.

Over time, this newfound autonomy energized David and his team to develop an idea that would dramatically reduce the number of hours of development work. It came with a significant risk: could it be done in time for tax season? David couldn't be sure, but he thought it could be done.

This was a tremendous risk for the team, me as a leader, and the company. Vinod and I believed in David and his team, and I gave the green light. David and his team ran with it.

The result was an incredible innovation that saved thousands (yes, thousands!) of development hours and was done in time for tax season. David and his team were highly recognized for their work, inspiring other teams to believe they could achieve such success. It was through this process that I was able to formally codify my transformational playbook.

We had made the transformation, but the playbook remained essential as we moved forward. When the organization was tasked with a new, significant change, we returned to the playbook; when our workforce increased, we returned to the playbook; and when unexpected shifts occurred in our processes or platforms, we returned to the playbook. I have also returned to the playbook to validate our success.

Months after the tax content team completed their successful transformation, I returned to my playbook's Listen and Learn stage. I interviewed a large swath of employees in the same way I had upon the start of our transformational process to validate whether we had shifted the culture the way we had intended. The interactions and innovations of our employees suggested we had, but I wanted the data to prove it.

The first Listen and Learn process resulted in a variety of negative responses from "Management doesn't know what they are doing" to "I hate my job" and "There's no innovation here."

My follow-up Listen and Learn process led to comments like, "I love coming to work every day" and "The opportunity to innovate is awesome!" With a proven roadmap to guide us, my team and I succeeded in truly transforming the organization's processes and platforms and our most valuable asset, the people of Intuit.

Leaders don't transform a company, a project, or a team; the people they inspire to collaborate, innovate, and reach for greatness do. Providing your team with a proven playbook that guides and informs their path forward and empowers them to make bold, innovative moves will lead you and your team to true transformational change.