Everyone knows that context shapes behavior — especially in teams.
Communication is a perfect example: one person’s influencing style doesn’t just affect their own results; it sends ripples through the whole group.
Sometimes those ripples accelerate progress; other times they stall it. What works brilliantly in one context can backfire in another. That’s why the second law of influence matters: once you understand it, you can help any team adapt their approach to the situation and goal at hand.
This article is a dive into one of the three fundamental laws underpinning the Sphere of Influence: The Second Law of Timothy Leary’s Rose.
We’ll explore how it works, why it matters, and the upsides and downsides of different influencing styles at the group level. I’ll also highlight specific behaviors that signal each style, so you can spot them in those you coach, then use that awareness to help teammates work more effectively with one another.
What Is The Second Law of Influence?
Let’s start by adopting the perspective of a team member you coach for just a second. Here are some interesting questions to ask your coachee.
- How well do you think you understand your team’s dynamics?
- Do you think you have a good grasp of how heavily your teammates’ communication styles influence you and your real-world impact on others?
Leary’s Second Law of Influence describes an important, proven interaction-related phenomenon that you and your coachees have very likely observed in practice:
“Content-oriented behavior tends to evoke similarly content-oriented behavior in others, while relationship-oriented behavior tends to evoke relationship-oriented behaviors.”
You see, the more our communication focuses on facts, data, figures, and evidence, the more likely others are to respond with the same. Focus more on connections, “we,” “togetherness,” and building relationships, and we can expect others to reciprocate in kind.
A few examples:
- A content-driven teammate drops data into a Slack thread. Very soon, everyone is replying with charts, reports, and statistics of their own.
- A relationship-focused colleague models active listening in 1:1s, and soon the wider team’s conversations are punctuated with more nods, affirmations, and follow-up questions.
- An engineer raises a technical detail during a project update, and suddenly, the whole team has lost an hour debating features instead of outcomes.
- A co-worker celebrates small wins out loud. Somehow, teammates find it easier, more organic, to affirm each other’s unique contributions.
Want a curious fact about this phenomenon? It tends to get more noticeable over time. The longer teams work together, the further their collective behavior moves toward one extreme of the content–relationship axis.
Have you been in a team session like one of the above? I thought so.
That’s because this plays out in all team sessions—in coaching and every day at work. Let’s take a look.
Two Teams, Two Extremes
As you read these vignettes, you might be reminded of two different teams you’ve worked with or coached.
Each example illustrates the mechanism of the Second Law of Influence. See if you can pick up which extreme they lean toward!
Team Alphabet is full of sharp minds who pride themselves on rigorous debate. Every stand-up and update becomes a test of logic:
“Do the numbers hold up?”
“What’s the evidence?”
It doesn’t take long for the team’s entire culture to start leaning content-heavy, because members have learned data or airtight arguments = getting heard.
What gets lost? What could they use more of?
Energy, trust, and the willingness to voice half-formed ideas that could spark creativity.
Contrast this with Team Butternut, which thrives on camaraderie. Meetings start with long check-ins, decisions take shape through consensus, and the atmosphere is warm.
But over time, connection becomes the only safe currency, with some members feeling “out of place” about raising the tougher questions.
This team gets along wonderfully. However, their risk is that problems go unchallenged, and critical issues stay hidden beneath a blanket of harmony.
It’s a self-reinforcing dynamic either way. The more a team practices one style, the harder it becomes for any member to introduce the opposite. Not only because the skills go unused, but because it starts to feel like “that’s not how we do things here.”
Which Team Are You Working With?
Coaching or training a team always begins with raising self-awareness; first at the individual level, then for the entire group.
If you can identify concrete behaviors that suggest a lean toward either side of the content-relationship spectrum, you can better help others tilt their team dynamics as required.
Consider the following common examples of (potentially) too much emphasis on content:
- Over-reliance on hard data, statistics, studies, and similar to define frameworks or guidelines for the group. Sometimes known as “winning by spreadsheet.”
- Prioritizing processes and structures to the point that conversations become rigid checklists instead of dynamic discussions.
- Focusing so heavily on problem-solving and task completion that emotional cues, team morale, or underlying tensions get overlooked.
Now, three examples from the relationship side of the SOI360, which might indicate a team is weighted too far that way:
- Spending so much time smoothing conflicts or validating feelings that key decisions stall.
- Allowing “keeping the peace” to override accountability or constructive challenge.
- Valuing harmony and consensus to the point that tough but necessary conversations never happen.
Helping To Break These Patterns
You can kick things off by helping teammates recognize these behaviors as you discuss their SOI360 report together one-on-one. That’s easy enough (but this guide always helps!), but what comes after individual-level self-awareness?
A few ways to start:
1. Create Accountability
As a team coach, you can help keep these dynamics visible, by holding coachees accountable to practicing new approaches. Help them consider “next steps” they might take into the real world, and how they might create space for practical experimentation.
2. Ask Better Questions
Encourage participants to start shifting their conversations.
Brainstorm reflective prompts together that they might use when they spot these dynamics; for instance:
For more relationship-focus:
- “What might we all gain by discussing our different interests?”
- “What would I truly miss, vs what we all might gain, if I made a small concession?”
- “Could harmony matter more than being right in this instance?”
For more content-focus:
- “Would unbiased facts and figures help us reach a solution more efficiently?”
- “What is the true cost of trying to keep everyone happy right now?”
- “Have we thought enough about what everybody needs to know for this to succeed?
3. Brainstorm the ‘Other Side’
When working with teams as a whole, invite them to identify what the opposite style would look like. A few potential prompts:
- If you tend to over-index on content, what would a relationship-focused approach add?
- If you lean heavily into relationships, what sharper, more task-driven behaviors might balance the picture?
