The transformation of the governance structure and the transition from state-centered to people-based models is one of the fundamental pillars of the Second Step Declaration of the Islamic Revolution and the one that outlines the path of the future Iran. In this vision, the government’s managerial role is reduced and the emphasis is on empowering individuals to play a role at all levels of decision-making and implementation. However, the lack of an operational mechanism to organize and guide this enormous popular capacity has always been a major challenge. The concept of the “flow of middle links,” which was introduced by the Supreme Leader in June 2019 as a solution for implementing the Second Step Declaration, is designed precisely to fill this gap. Middle links are organizations and groups that arise from the heart of the nation and are tasked with taking on the important task of guiding, planning, and following up on the activities of popular groups, while avoiding entering the government bureaucracy. This research, with a qualitative approach and using the comparative-documentary analysis method, seeks to answer the main question of how the "guiding coalition" model proposed by John Cotter, a prominent theorist of change management, can be used to explain, conceptualize, and provide an operational model for the flow of middle links. For this purpose, first, the guiding coalition model and its mechanism were collected and explained from reputable scientific literature. In the next stage, by forming a matrix of main categories, these two concepts (guiding coalition and middle links) were compared with each other on such axes as position in the structure, characteristics of members, motivations, goals, and performance pattern. The findings of this research indicate a deep and structural convergence and correspondence between these two concepts. The conclusion of the article indicates that the scientific framework of the guiding coalition is a tested and successful global model that can, as a practical guide, help establish, strengthen, and be effective in the flow of middle circles on the path of self-development, socialization, and civilization-building, and in this way, move people-based governance from the level of discourse to the field of action.