Three different contexts came to my mind at the same time.
First, about a friend from my private web3 group. actually he's never worked in web3, but I always listen to his takes on airdrops. He's made real money from consistently tracking and farming airdrops from the early days until now. The only reason he has authority with me is one thing, he tolerates boring longer than I do... I guess that's reliability XD
Second, the friendly + authoritative line. I got it wrong on both sides. The first time, at an offline web3 event, I was too soft on one person (who others called a troublemaker). He ended up causing trouble in the group and making others uncomfortable. If I'd enforced earlier, I probably wouldn't have lost the rest of the room's trust. The second time, the opposite. My blunt way of talking sometimes lands wrong and makes people uncomfortable around me. Both failures are the same shape, I missed where the line was. And both times the cost wasn't on me, it was on the people around me.
Third, default authority. This one's live right now. I just joined a local crypto community WhatsApp group and got handed an admin / advisor role. People already listen to me even though I haven't proven anything there yet. What I want to do is keep building with them, help them grow until we get somewhere together. I know I'm still figuring things out myself, but what I can give right now is keep showing up and follow through on small stuff. Said I'd reply, I reply. Said I'd share info, I share.