Trust and Integrity Beat Strategy When Scaling High-Growth Teams

In this episode of The High Performance Herd, David Quick sits down with Ryan Getz, CEO of WGA Consulting Engineers, to discuss the leadership required to scale a growing organisation while keeping trust, integrity, and people development at the centre of how it operates. Their conversation explores how leaders can maintain performance and organisational identity as teams expand and responsibilities become more distributed.

Ryan’s experience at WGA Consulting Engineers has involved building high-performing teams while navigating successive stages of organisational growth. Along the way, he has worked through the practical demands of scaling, including systematic processes, quality control, leadership development, and investment in early-career talent. That experience gives him a practical perspective on how growth changes both the structure of an organisation and the expectations placed on its leaders.

As he explains in this conversation, trust and integrity are foundational to sustainable growth because strong performance depends on people who are prepared to take ownership rather than wait for direction. Ryan emphasises the importance of pushing leadership further into the organisation and developing future leaders deliberately, creating an environment where responsibility and decision-making can expand alongside the business.

David and Ryan also examine the role of purpose, values, and self-awareness in shaping leadership, as well as the value of reflection in recognising where change is needed. Their discussion covers empowering entry-level employees, developing talent over the long term, identifying organisational stagnation, maintaining core values during expansion, and listening without judgement as a way to improve team decisions and strengthen trust.

For founders, engineering leaders, and executives scaling professional services organisations, this episode offers a grounded perspective on how trust, values, and leadership development support growth. It is a practical reflection on building an organisation whose performance becomes less dependent on individual leaders and more securely rooted in the capability of the wider team.