Coaching practices for I Lead a Team and I've Realized the People I Lean on Most Are the Ones Who Remind Me of Myself or Are Just Easy to Be Around and I'm Uneasy That I'm Rewarding Similarity and Comfort Instead of Who's Actually Earned it
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Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- I lead a team and I’ve realized the people I lean on most are the ones who remind me of myself or are just easy to be around
- Everyone around me just nods along and tells me I’m right because it’s easier and it feels good, and I’m starting to crave someone who’ll actually push back and tell me where my thinking is weak before it costs me
- I look around at the people I’ve hired and they all think exactly like me
- Where I come alive is in the human glue
- There are people on my team I’ve quietly written off
Practices that may help
- Manage LMX differentiation fairly as a leader
Acknowledge that you develop different relationships with different people — and ensure the differences are earned, not arbitrary.
Leader-Member Exchange (LMX), Made Practical - Find a truth-seeking group that argues with you
Surround yourself with people whose job in the relationship is to challenge your reasoning, not validate it.
Thinking in Bets - Build a team whose combined strengths cover all four domains
Hire and assemble deliberately for domain coverage, not for people who think like you.
Strengths-Based Leadership, Made Practical - Lead from the relationship building domain — hold the team together
People strong in relationship building are the glue that holds a team’s cohesion under pressure.
Strengths-Based Leadership, Made Practical - Deliberately expand your inner circle
Move team members from low-LMX to high-LMX through intentional relationship investment.
Leader-Member Exchange (LMX), Made Practical - There are no bad teams, only bad leaders
The same people perform differently under different leadership — so start with the leadership.
Extreme Ownership, Made Practical - Cultivate identity-safe relationships
Build relationships in which being known accurately — not just approved of — is the norm.
Self-Verification Theory, Made Practical - Model vulnerability and uncertainty as a leader to accelerate safety
Deliberately share your own uncertainties, mistakes, and questions — it gives permission for others to do the same.
The Four Stages of Psychological Safety - Use similarity to connect, not to seek validation
Seeking people who agree with everything you believe produces an echo chamber, not a support network.
The Similarity-Attraction Effect (Donn Byrne) - Look out the window for credit, in the mirror for blame
When things go well, credit others; when things go wrong, look at yourself first.
Level 5 Leadership: Humility and Will in Great Leaders
Related concerns
- Developing Leaders In Teams
Assign Q3 tasks to team members who are ready to stretch — and treat the learning curve as the point.
Use delegation as a development tool
- Expand Inner Circle Leadership
Move team members from low-LMX to high-LMX through intentional relationship investment.
Deliberately expand your inner circle
- Level 5 Leadership Humility And Will In Great Leaders With Friends
Jim Collins’ Good to Great research found that the leaders who took companies from good to great shared a paradoxical combination of fierce personal will and deep personal humility — what Collins calls Level 5 Leadership. They channeled ambition into the institution, not themselves, and set up successors for greatness rather than engineering dependence.
- Team Alignment Practices
Know what each team member needs to grow and provide support tailored to them.
Treat each person as an individual with distinct needs and aspirations
- Team Equity Leadership
Acknowledge that you develop different relationships with different people — and ensure the differences are earned, not arbitrary.
Manage LMX differentiation fairly as a leader
- Authority Levels Leadership
Delegation levels frameworks (most commonly a 5- or 7-level scale) give managers and their reports a shared vocabulary for how much authority is being handed over on any task — from "wait for my instructions" to "decide and act without telling me." The model is practitioner wisdom rather than formally studied, but the underlying principle — that ambiguity about authority is the root of both micromanagement and abdication — has solid organizational support.
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