A team is easier to trust when its standards survive the presence of a star.

Rules that bend for the best performer are not rules; they are a ranking. Everyone sees the exception, and what they learn is that the standard applies according to usefulness, which quietly tells each person exactly how much they are worth. The cost is not to the star. It is to every other person, who now knows the terms.

Look for the place in your group where one person is excused from something. Ask whether you would explain that arrangement out loud to everyone else, in those words. If not, either change the standard for all or apply it to all, and say which you have chosen and why.