Below‐threshold studies of an injection‐locked gain‐guided diode laser array show a far‐field emission pattern with several lobes whose angular widths decrease with increasing frequency of the injected radiation. The concurrent increase in the far‐field emission angle with the frequency of the injected radiation provides strong evidence that the interelement coupling in a gain‐guided diode laser array depends upon the tilt of the wave front in the array cavity. These results provide insight into the coupling mechanism that dominates gain‐guided array behavior and strongly suggest that these devices should be viewed as perturbed broad‐area devices in which plane waves are undergoing multiple reflections between facets. This contrasts sharply with the coupled‐mode picture, which is more appropriate for index‐guided arrays.