Many exceptional leaders say that the secret to success is hiring people whose talents outstrip your own. Smart, skilled, bold and ambitious team members can help you drive business results at scale. But what happens if your employees build their brand in a way that crowds out yours?

By Nihar Chhaya

Perhaps one of your direct reports spends more time marketing himself with leaders senior to you than delivering work to your expectations. Or another has a big presence on social media and within industry circles but seems to take sole credit for work that you and your team achieved. You don’t want to shut them down and look insecure, and you know that providing autonomy is more empowering than controlling their every move. But you also need them to operate like collaborative company leaders, putting the team before their personal agendas.

If your employee’s aggressive profile-building distracts them from their day job or overshadows you and your team, you risk diminishing your chances for future advancement and your credibility as their boss. Here are five steps you can take to handle an employee who is actively stepping over you, without stifling their ambitions or losing your power to manage them.

Assess whether their self-promotion is hindering their performance 

A direct report seeking to outshine their boss may do so by excelling at their role. But in some cases, you may have someone who is actively promoting themselves while underperforming. When this happens, it’s important to remind the person about the requirements of the job. You might say, “You’re doing so well with building your brand, but at the core of a great brand is an excellent reputation for high performance. Based on recent missed results, I’m concerned. Being a leader in our department means growing your group’s capabilities, collaborating with your peers, and holding yourself accountable to agreed-upon plans. I want to make sure those are your top priorities.”

By helping them see the value in promoting themselves through stellar team results, not just personal relationships, you maintain their respect without holding them back.

Manage your self-doubt by staying objective

When watching an employee curry favor with audiences that you should be influencing, it’s natural to experience insecurity and self-doubt. But you must stay confident when assessing how to respond.

One of my coaching clients, a newly promoted VP of HR at a Fortune 50 company, managed a highly experienced and networked director who had interviewed for her role. Ever since she became his boss, he missed deadlines and was unavailable to his team for coaching. Yet he found time to speak at several national HR conferences, sharing the company’s innovative work in employee branding. He also conducted a few interviews with high-profile industry publications, which created a perception that he, not his boss, was the executive in charge.

The VP felt insulted, but she also privately doubted her credibility as his boss since he had more experience and influence than her in certain areas. However, for her brand as a leader, it was vital that she stay objective, not vengeful nor self-critical. Actually, more than a third of employees secretly believe they can do a better job than their manager, so the VP was in good company.

She also needed to remember that her job was not to compare her experience with that of her direct reports. As their leader, she had a duty to demand high performance from them and call them out when they failed to meet those expectations.

Always be consistent when addressing their behavior. 

These days many successful companies favor less management control; they instead empower employees to a much higher degree as a way of motivating and retaining them. As a result, many leaders send mixed messages about how much they will tolerate their employee’s self-promotional activities. One minute you may permit a behavior, and the next, judge it as unacceptable.

If a direct report takes the autonomy you give them as permission to outshine you, it’s essential to be consistent in your feedback, so they truly get the message. Take the time to co-define the boundaries you want to establish , so they conduct themselves with respect for your position as the boss and the team. To strengthen trust and accountability, resist shifting these boundaries.

Don’t derail yourself by getting dragged into a contest

At times you may feel like you’re falling behind individual direct reports, but you have to avoid the trap of competing with them. Doing so can ultimately hurt you.

I coached an SVP of Marketing at a global consumer goods company who was being groomed to become the Chief Marketing Officer after her boss retired and was, in turn, grooming one of her VPs to take her role. But when her boss suddenly retired earlier than expected, the company chose to bring in an experienced CMO rather than promote my client.

The SVP was disappointed but nonetheless focused on making her new boss successful. She soon noticed that her VP had started to spend a great deal of time with the new CMO. So it wasn’t long before my client found herself anxiously competing for her boss’s attention. She began to lose her grip as a confident executive, obsessing about what her VP was up to and acting in a way that was unbecoming of her senior leadership role. In the process, she not only lost her VP’s trust but also missed vital opportunities to cultivate influence with the CMO based on her unique strengths.

Competition with colleagues can be productive when it stems from positive, shared intent. But when colleagues compete based on anxiety, they sabotage not only each other but also themselves. Ultimately the company transitioned the SVP out within a year of the CMO’s arrival, primarily due to a self-inflicted drop in influence with her team and her boss.

Learn from your direct report’s audacity

While it’s unpleasant to have your direct report outshine you, consider whether there is anything you could learn from their brazenness? You may balk at the idea of humbling yourself and asking them to share their secrets, but consider the Ben Franklin Effect, which shows how doing so might benefit you and your relationship. This phenomenon suggests that people are more likely to see you as worth helping if you’ve requested a favor from them than they are if they’ve received a favor from you. You become more likable in their eyes because they subconsciously assume that if they’re helping you they must already like you.

You can say to your direct report, “You’ve become very successful in representing our company on social media and the public speaking circuit. I want to learn how to get my name out there, as well. Could I ask your advice on how to get started?”

They might be pleased to help you, and your gesture sends a signal that you have shared interests, which also enhances trust. Indeed, when there is a perception of similarity, people develop a stronger affiliation with each other.

Without question, to achieve audacious goals, you need talented, aspiring and brazen employees on your team. But when a direct report is trying to outshine you and not respecting your management, you can use these strategies to maintain your leadership without stifling their ambitions.