Leading your friends is the hardest kind. You have to be okay being a little less liked for a while.

Leading people who are also your friends sets two things you want against each other: being liked and being useful. If keeping everyone happy is the goal, you will avoid the awkward sentence the group actually needs. Being slightly less popular for a while is the price, and the people who respect you later are often the ones who found you irritating at the time.

Think of the thing you have been avoiding saying to your group because it will go down badly. Say it once, kindly, without a speech. Then carry on being their friend as if nothing happened, because mostly nothing has.