The leader-member exchange (LMX) literature highlights the challenge leaders face in building strong relationships with all team members. As a result, leaders often form high-quality exchange with a select few members, while maintaining formal relationships with others. This form of differentiated treatment of members creates tensions in team dynamics. In this paper, we propose that leaders can more effectively overcome the downsides of leader-member exchange differentiation (LMXD) for team dynamics by purposefully and strategically developing high-quality LMX with key members in central positions within the team’s social networks, motivating and empowering them to help leaders buffer the negative impact of LMXD. Our framework integrates LMX theory with perspectives from social network research to illustrate how strategic differentiation influences task and relational team dynamics. Finally, the paper concludes with discussions on theoretical extensions and recommendations for future research.