Some leaders build fans by making you feel small next to them. Real ones make you feel taller when they’re around.

One way to stand out is to keep everyone around you slightly diminished, and it does work, which is why it is common. It produces an audience rather than a group, and it only holds while people have nowhere else to be. The other version costs nothing and multiplies, because making people more capable does not reduce you at all. It is just less immediately flattering.

Watch how people seem when they walk away from you this week. If they seem smaller, look at what you are doing in those conversations. Try handing over one piece of credit you could have kept.