1. A simple but often uncomfortable insight
Today’s focus is #2 in the Top 5 insights on the path to becoming a true leader: the necessity of leading individuals, not categories.
Many leaders describe this realization as a genuine turning point.
Almost all say in hindsight: I underestimated this.
And almost all add: Without this insight, I would never have become truly effective.
2. A powerful experiment in a leadership training
I still vividly remember a leadership seminar with professional external facilitators and multiple role plays. In one exercise, we were asked to prepare for a performance conversation as a team lead. We had clear objectives about what to address and achieve. We were given 30 minutes to prepare and instructed to follow a structured conversation format.
When the role play began, the “employee” - portrayed by one of the facilitators - broke down in tears after just three sentences (brilliantly acted).
The question was simple: How would we react?
Would we push through our prepared agenda? Or would we abandon the structure and respond to the human being in obvious distress sitting across from us?
Only the latter made sense. Yet some participants clung to their conversation plan - as if structure mattered more than the person in front of them.
For me, this was a genuine eye-opener.
3. Treating everyone the same is not automatically good leadership
Many leaders do not learn the need for flexibility and individuality in training, but in real life.
They begin with a well-intentioned belief: Being fair means establishing clear and consistent rules - and treating everyone essentially the same. That sounds right, but it is often the beginning of a misunderstanding.
People are not the same. They work differently, think differently, need different things - and, above all, are motivated differently.
Anyone who tries to manage everyone with the same leadership style will sooner or later experience frustration - on both sides.
Individual leadership does not mean being arbitrary or unfair. It means recognizing differences and taking them seriously rather than managing them away.
4. Why leading individuals is so difficult
Especially early in their leadership journey, many people design a kind of template:
This is how I will use KPIs.
This is how often I will conduct one-on-ones.
This is how I will motivate my team.
The blueprint is usually based on their own career: What did I consider fair? What motivated me? The reflex is understandable: If this works for me, it should work for others.
That works - until you sit across from a team member who is deeply frustrated - e.g. for personal reasons. In such moments, no incentive system, no KPI structure, no motivational framework will help.
What helps is something else entirely: time, listening, support, empathy.
And that is where real leadership begins.
5. Leading individuals means putting relationship before method
Individual leadership starts where you stop seeing leadership as a technique and begin understanding it as a relationship.
It means asking:
Who needs more structure - and who needs more freedom?
Who thrives on challenge - and who needs psychological safety first?
Who grows through direct feedback - and who grows through trust?
This approach is more demanding than applying one uniform style. But it is far more effective.
It is also the prerequisite for people not only performing - but growing.
6. My recommandation
Are you leading your team - or the individuals within it?
Where are you treating everyone the same, even though they need different things?
And what would change if you saw leadership less as a role - and more as a relationship?
Leading individually does not mean leading without structure.
It means looking more closely, showing empathy, and using your personality consciously.
That is where real strength lies.
