In this episode of The People Playbook Podcast, host Jason Taylor sits down with Drew Gillett, VP of Retail Marketing at Guild Mortgage. Drew leads a high-performance marketing team supporting thousands of loan officers in the highly regulated mortgage industry, where he focuses on building trust, driving culture, developing leaders at scale, and helping people show up with clarity and confidence.

Drew shares practical leadership insights drawn from years of scaling teams and influencing large organizations. Key topics include:

• Hiring for ownership mentality and emotional intelligence over pure results
• Balancing autonomy with accountability through clear ownership, dates, and communication
• Letting go of the "how" without lowering standards in fast-moving environments
• Diagnosing underperformance: clarity, capability, or care?
• The critical role of steady emotional mindset during high-tension moments
• Giving direct, timely feedback instead of delaying hard conversations
• Helping leaders build authentic personal brands with consistency (not constancy)
• Unlearning bottlenecks as you scale, coaching the next generation, and more

Whether you're leading teams, navigating rapid growth, or developing your own leadership style, Drew's emphasis on people-first decisions, curiosity, and high standards offers actionable plays to build stronger teams and better results.