Coming Up Today
The specific kind of work friendships Explorers build
What shifts when one of you suddenly outranks the other
One tip for each Explorer personality type stepping into a leadership role over former peers
There’s a strange thing about getting promoted as an Explorer personality type – ISTP, ISFP, ESTP, or ESFP. The title rewards how well you’ve been doing the work – and then asks you to do less of it.
If you’re an Explorer, there’s a good chance the work itself was a big part of how you built friendships at the office. The projects you tackled together. The crises you handled side by side. The unspoken “you know what to do, I know what to do, let’s just get it done” rhythm that didn’t really need explaining.
Then a title showed up. And suddenly the version of work that built those friendships starts to look different.
Maybe a colleague you used to be in the work with is now reporting to you, and you find yourself in meetings about the work instead of in the work. Or maybe a former peer is now your boss, and the easy, low-process way you used to operate together has gained a layer of formality that neither of you knows quite what to do with.
Today, we’ll get into both sides of that shift – what changes when you step into leadership over former peers, and what changes when one of those peers becomes the one leading you.
Let’s jump in!
The Kind of Work Friendships Explorers Build
Explorer work friendships tend to form in the doing. Not in long debriefs or scheduled check-ins or careful planning conversations. In the actual work itself.
The project you ripped through together last quarter. The system outage you both showed up for at 9 p.m. without anyone asking. The client meeting that went sideways and the silent way you and a colleague handed each other the rescue. You found yourself trusting someone because you saw how they worked when things got real – not because they told you who they were.
After enough of those shared experiences, you end up with a handful of colleagues you’d trust with almost anything.
That kind of friendship is hard to articulate and even harder to recreate. Which is part of what makes it tricky to navigate when one of you suddenly steps into a role that pulls them away from the work.
When One of You Becomes the Boss
If you’re the one stepping into leadership, the job starts asking for a version of you that may not feel very natural. Suddenly there are planning meetings, alignment conversations, check-ins, timelines, updates. None of that is bad. It’s part of the role. But it can make the relationship feel less spontaneous than it used to.
You may feel like you’re becoming more structured, more careful, more removed from the action. Your former peer can probably feel it too. The old rhythm – figuring things out together, moving fast, laughing through the chaos – gets quieter as the role changes where your attention goes.
The other side can feel just as weird.
When a former peer becomes your manager, the person who used to just trust you to run with something may now need to ask for updates, clarify priorities, or check whether things are on track. They may not mean it as control. But when your friendship used to run on freedom and trust, even normal management can feel heavier than it is.
You might bristle at the structure, even while understanding why it’s there. And your friend-turned-manager may feel awkward having to manage someone they used to simply work alongside.
This doesn’t happen in every friendship. Some people adjust smoothly. But it’s worth naming, because power changes the rhythm of a relationship – even when everyone is trying to handle it well.
Not sure if you’re an Explorer? Take our free personality test. It has a 91.2% accuracy rating and only takes 10 minutes to complete.
4 Tips for Explorers Navigating the Shift from Peer to Leader
Once you understand how leadership changes the dynamic of Explorer work friendships, the next step is learning how to protect the parts of those relationships that matter most.
Below, we’ll look at one practical leadership tip for each Explorer type to help make the transition from peer to leader a little smoother.
Here goes:
