Build Better Leaders by Protecting High Performers From Low Performers

Posted by

November 30, 2025

On December 9, 2025

Building a high-performance agency requires leaders who can build better leaders—especially when the wrong behaviors quietly drain your momentum.

When your agency is growing fast, even one low performer can erode trust, slow execution, and frustrate your best people. In this episode, Brett Hoogeveen reveals why protecting high performers is one of the most strategic moves you can make—and how simple shifts in leadership clarity, culture design, and expectations can help you build better leaders at every level of your business.

🎧 Listen to the Full Episode on Build Better Leaders

Listen to the Full Episode

How High-Performing Teams Build Better Leaders by Protecting Their Best People

In Build Better Leaders by Protecting High Performers From Low Performers, I sat down with Brett Hoogeveen—trained engineer, former healthcare executive, startup investor, and co-founder of Better Culture. Brett has spent the last decade training thousands of leaders and strengthening executive teams across industries, helping them see what most organizations overlook: culture isn’t soft. It’s structural.

Brett walked us through the leadership patterns and cultural systems that consistently create high-performing organizations—and the critical insight that transformed his own leadership path: your best people pay the highest price for tolerated low performance.His framework is both simple and scalable. Top-down leadership clarity gives people direction. Bottom-up behavioral standards give them alignment. When applied consistently, these systems don’t just improve morale—they build better leaders, elevate execution, and protect your agency’s long-term capacity.

For Agency Owners Building to the Next Level

This episode is built for digital agency founders who:

Are scaling teams and need leadership systems that remove bottlenecks, not create them
Want to protect high performers from burnout and frustration
Feel cultural drag when one low performer slows an entire pod or department
Need managers who communicate clearly, follow through, and reinforce standards
Want frameworks—not theory—for reducing friction and strengthening execution
Are building toward operational freedom and want culture to accelerate growth

The Hidden Cost of Tolerating the Wrong Behaviors

As I coach leaders navigating rapid scale, one truth becomes clearer every year: your culture is defined far more by what you tolerate than by the values you publish. When performance expectations slip—even subtly—your best people feel it first. They carry the weight. They compensate for gaps. They absorb the friction quietly until one day they no longer can.

What Brett articulated so well is something I see repeatedly inside fast-growing agencies: protecting high performers isn’t about removing people quickly—it’s about stewarding your culture intentionally. When you allow the wrong attitudes or inconsistent behaviors to persist, you unintentionally lower the ceiling on your entire organization.

But the opposite is also true. When you set clear expectations, communicate with consistency, and address misalignment early, you create an environment where excellence compounds. People feel proud to be here. They contribute creatively, take ownership more easily, and bring a level of energy that no software tool or automation can replicate.

If you want to build a healthier, more resilient agency this year, start by strengthening leadership clarity and addressing the behaviors that weaken trust. Your best people will notice—and they will rise.

Episode Highlights & Key Leadership Breakthroughs

00:02 — Why culture becomes invisible when teams scale

00:58 — Brett’s background: engineering, healthcare, startups, Better Culture

01:14 — The early lessons that shaped how he views workplace culture

02:55 — How culture influences every operational and financial metric

04:12 — A simple definition of culture that actually resonates with teams

05:10 — Where culture starts and how it spreads throughout an organization

06:27 — When a CEO shouldn’t be the primary culture driver (rare exception)

08:30 — The two-directional model for healthy culture: top-down and bottom-up

09:40 — Seven leadership principles that consistently build strong teams

14:45 — The “math” behind removing toxic drag to protect your best people

17:14 — Why the 20 Tenets of Culture outperform slogans or posters

21:10 — A real-world example of culture compounding in a healthcare organization

27:21 — The communication challenge inside Brett’s own business

29:22 — The bold promise that could transform workplace culture everywhere

Connect with Brett Hoogeveen

To learn more about Brett’s work or explore the tools he shared, visit betterculture.com or connect with him on LinkedIn. He also created a resource specifically for leaders: the People Leader Checklist, available at betterculture.com/catalytic.

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About Dr. William Attaway:

Dr. William Attaway is a seasoned Executive Mindset and Leadership Coach who helps 6-, 7-, and 8-figure digital agency owners scale their businesses with clarity, systems, and confidence. With over 30 years of experience, he equips growth-driven entrepreneurs to build high-performing teams, implement scalable systems, and transition from freelancer to CEO.

He hosts the Catalytic Leadership™ Podcast—ranked in the Top 1.5% of podcasts globally (source: Listen Notes)—with a weekly reach of over 50,000. Each episode features elite agency owners and top digital entrepreneurs sharing what actually works when scaling a service-based business.

From leadership development and visionary thinking to mindset transformation and team optimization, Dr. Attaway empowers agency leaders to build a business that thrives without their constant oversight—and a team that flourishes under intentional, scalable leadership.