“Loyalty to the wrong person costs you way more than a severance check.”
Read that again.
We’re all about building badass, self-managing teams. But sometimes, the real leadership move isn’t coaching them harder. It’s cutting them loose—before they infect everything you’ve built.
In this episode of Special Ops, we went straight into the battlefield of culture, conflict, and team toxicity—the kind of stuff that silently torpedoes your growth.
The Truth Most Founders Won’t Say Out Loud:
Toxic employees don’t start out toxic.
They start out loyal. Eager. “High potential.”
And then… you make one of two deadly mistakes:
- You over-accommodate.
- You under-correct.
That’s how one weak link turns into a culture-destroying cancer—and why Emma straight-up admits she once kept the wrong guy on payroll for 6 months too long because she liked him. Then tried to “gently” demote him by slashing his pay to get him to leave.
What happened?
He stuck around, got bitter, and poisoned the air.
Let that sink in: Your well-intentioned “niceness” can be the most toxic move of all.
5 Warning Signs Your Team Culture Is on Fire (And Not in a Good Way)
- Slack is a war zone. People aren’t collaborating—they’re sniping.
- You’re mediating more than leading. Constant little “misunderstandings” between departments? That’s conflict avoidance, not culture.
- Feedback feels personal. If people get defensive at questions, you’ve got a vulnerability vacuum.
- Dead weight drags the A-players down. The stars start to disengage. Morale sinks. That’s the signal—not the symptom.
- You’re exhausted managing around someone. If you’ve built systems, meetings, or entire workflows just to “accommodate” one person… stop.
Stop Calling It a “Team” If You’re Scared to Make Cuts
We’re not running a family here. We’re running a business.
Families don’t fire grandma. We do.
And yet, here’s what happens:
You hire someone who was “there from the beginning.”
They get comfortable. You get attached.
And now, despite months (or years) of mediocrity… you’re still trying to “coach them up.”
You’re paying for loyalty instead of performance.
And your actual performers are noticing.
Here’s the brutal truth:
You owe it to your high performers to fire your low performers.
The Fix: Vulnerability, Alignment, and Ruthless Standards
Yara Golden dropped a goldmine in this episode around how to rebuild broken teams:
- Start with radical personality awareness. We’re talking full-on Myers-Briggs, 16Personalities, breaking down work styles in public—so nobody has to guess who’s “attacking” who.
- Make vulnerability a system. One of their team rituals? If your life were a book, what’s the title? Sounds fluffy. Turns out, it’s a psychological power move to build real human connection fast.
- Create conflict-safe environments. When teams trust each other, they challenge ideas, not people. That’s when real growth happens.
But if someone’s not capable, not willing, or just plain toxic?
You cut. Quick and clean.
Letting someone go doesn’t mean you failed.
It means you’re finally leading.
🎧 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtCT_vLQmTM
Ready to Lead Like a Pro?
If your team’s stuck in underperformance, miscommunication, or hidden resentment, download the free Marketing & Ops Alignment Blueprint inside the Visionary Vault.
It’s the exact 3-step framework we use to align strategy, clean up messes, and scale without drama.