MODULE 5 - DO YOU PLAY FAVORITES? WHAT IS YOUR BUSINESS CASE?
- Kavita Shermon
- Jan 31
- 21 min read
Updated: Mar 21
Playing Favorites: The Hidden Impact of Favoritism in Organizational Culture
The phenomenon of favoritism operates like an invisible current, simultaneously shaping workplace dynamics while often remaining unacknowledged. This seemingly innocuous human tendency to prefer certain individuals over others transforms into a powerful force when manifested within organizational hierarchies, capable of either catalyzing exceptional performance or corroding the very foundation of workplace culture.
The practice of "playing favorites" exists along a spectrum—from the subtle, perhaps unconscious preferential treatment of certain team members to the explicit elevation of a select few based on personal relationships rather than merit. This analysis explores the multifaceted nature of favoritism in organizations, examining its origins, manifestations, and far-reaching consequences while questioning whether any degree of preferential treatment can exist without undermining organizational health.
Case Study: The Hidden Costs of Favoritism at TechVision India
Company Background
TechVision India, headquartered in Bangalore with offices in Mumbai, Delhi, and Hyderabad, emerged as one of India's promising mid-tier IT services and products companies in 2010. Founded by Rajen Mehta, an IIT graduate with experience at global tech giants, the company initially distinguished itself through innovative solutions in financial technology and exceptional client service. By 2015, TechVision had grown to 1,200 employees and established a reputation for technical excellence, attracting both multinational clients and top engineering talent.
The company's early culture emphasized merit and innovation. Its founding team implemented structured performance management systems, competitive compensation packages, and transparent promotion criteria. New hires frequently cited TechVision's professional environment and growth opportunities as primary reasons for joining. Industry analysts pointed to TechVision as an example of the new generation of Indian tech companies moving beyond the outsourcing model toward value-added services and product development.
This promising foundation, however, began showing cracks as the organization expanded beyond its founding team's direct oversight. What follows is an examination of how favoritism gradually reshaped TechVision's culture, ultimately undermining its market position and internal cohesion.
The Genesis of Favoritism: The CEO's Inner Circle
The first signs of favoritism appeared in 2016, shortly after TechVision secured a significant round of funding and accelerated its hiring. As organizational complexity increased, CEO Rajen Mehta increasingly relied on a small group of executives with whom he shared personal connections. This inner circle initially consisted of:
Vikram Sharma, Chief Operating Officer, who had been Mehta's classmate at IIT
Priya Desai, Chief Marketing Officer, who had previously worked with Mehta at a multinational corporation
Anand Kumar, Head of Financial Solutions, who was related to Mehta through marriage
Deepak Joshi, Chief Technology Officer, who had been part of Rajen Mehta's social circle for years
While each held appropriate qualifications for their positions, their access to Rajen Mehta created an unmistakable power differential within the executive team. Senior managers began noticing that decisions increasingly happened during informal gatherings rather than structured meetings, with the inner circle serving as gatekeepers to the CEO's attention. Head of HR was actively supporting favouritism and playing divide and rule for his own survival.
The Cascading Effect: Department-Level Replication
By 2018, this pattern had replicated itself throughout TechVision's hierarchy. Each member of the inner circle established their own favored subordinates, often selecting individuals who demonstrated personal loyalty over those with stronger technical capabilities or leadership potential.
The Financial Solutions division under Anand Kumar provided a particularly clear example of this cascade effect. Kumar appointed Rohit Singhania as Director of Banking Products despite Singhania's limited experience in financial systems. Their connection stemmed from shared hometown roots and Kumar's friendship with Singhania's family. Within months, Singhania assembled a team comprised primarily of engineers from his previous company, regardless of their fit for TechVision's projects.
Meanwhile, Sunil Mehrotra, a highly respected technical architect who had built most of the core banking products, found himself increasingly marginalized. Despite his critical role in product development, Mehrotra was excluded from key client meetings and strategy discussions. His recommendations for architectural improvements were routinely overridden by Singhania's team without technical justification.
The Rewards of Favorite Status: Visible Disparities
As favoritism became entrenched, the uneven distribution of rewards became increasingly apparent throughout the organization. These disparities manifested in several noticeable ways:
Project Assignments
The most visible client engagements and innovative product development initiatives were consistently assigned to members of favored groups, regardless of relevant experience. In one notable instance, a major banking client implementation was given to a team led by one of Singhania's favorites despite another team having successfully completed three similar projects.
Promotion Patterns
Analysis of promotion data from 2018-2020 revealed that employees with connections to the inner circle advanced significantly faster than peers with comparable or superior performance metrics. The average time to promotion for "connected" employees was 18 months, compared to 36 months for others with equivalent performance ratings.
Compensation Irregularities
Annual compensation adjustments showed similar patterns of favoritism. When an anonymous employee leaked salary information in 2019, it revealed that certain team members with connections to top executives received approximately 25-30% higher compensation than colleagues in equivalent roles with similar experience and performance ratings.
Office Space and Resources
Even physical workspace allocation reflected preferential treatment. The Mumbai office renovation in 2020 resulted in favored teams receiving premium spaces with natural lighting and views, while higher-performing teams were assigned to interior spaces. Similarly, budget allocations for team events, training programs, off sites, international reward travel, business class travel and technology resources showed consistent bias toward teams led by favorites.
Behavioral Manifestations: The Entitled Favorites
As the culture of favoritism solidified, the behavior of those within the privileged circles changed noticeably. Among the most problematic patterns:
Accountability Avoidance
In early 2020, TechVision's flagship payment processing product experienced a critical security vulnerability that affected several major clients. The issue originated in code developed by a team under Vikram Sharma's favorite director. Despite clear evidence of inadequate security testing, the director faced no consequences. Instead, the Quality Assurance team, which had actually identified the risk before release but was overruled, received restructuring that resulted in several senior QA engineers being reassigned.
Information Monopolization
Favorites began establishing information silos, restricting documentation and knowledge sharing. In the Financial Solutions division, Singhania's team implemented an unofficial policy of minimal documentation for core system components, creating dependency on specific team members and making it difficult for others to contribute or maintain systems. When challenged on this practice during an audit, Singhania justified it as "protecting intellectual property."
Public Undermining of Colleagues
During company meetings and client presentations, members of the favored groups routinely took credit for innovations developed by others while subtly undermining non-favorites. In one particularly egregious instance, a project manager from the inner circle presented another team's machine learning solution to a major client as if it had been developed by his own team. When the original developers raised concerns, they were told they were "not being team players."
Rule Exemptions
Company policies regarding remote work, time tracking, and expense approvals were applied inconsistently based on favorite status. During the initial COVID-19 transition to remote work in 2020, members of favored teams received priority access to company equipment and flexible scheduling accommodations, while other teams faced rigid expectations and limited support.
The Erosion of Meritocracy: Competence Gaps Emerge
By 2021, the cumulative effect of favoritism had created significant competence gaps within TechVision's leadership. Teams led by favorites had received promotions and resources disproportionate to their capabilities, while more skilled engineers and managers either left the company or remained in subordinate positions.
The impact became evident in several critical areas:
Technical Debt Accumulation
The Banking Solutions platform, once TechVision's flagship product, accumulated substantial technical debt under Singhania's leadership. His team prioritized rapid feature development to maintain visibility with executives while neglecting system architecture and code quality. By 2021, the platform's performance had degraded significantly, with implementation time for new clients increasing from 3 months to over 8 months due to architectural limitations and code complexity.
Client Satisfaction Decline
Net Promoter Scores from TechVision clients showed a steady decline from 2018 to 2021, dropping from 68 to 42. Client feedback increasingly mentioned delayed deliveries, quality issues, and communication problems—all symptoms of the competence gaps created by favoritism-based promotions.
Innovation Stagnation
Despite increasing R&D investments, TechVision's innovation output declined markedly. The company filed only three patents in 2021, compared to twelve in 2018. The innovation pipeline, once robust with engineer-driven initiatives, had contracted to projects primarily championed by favorites regardless of technical merit.
Implementation Failures
In mid-2021, TechVision lost a major contract with a multinational bank after a disastrous implementation led by one of Priya Desai's favorites. The project manager, who had been rapidly promoted based on relationship rather than capability, lacked the experience to manage the complexity involved. Despite early warning signs, the project continued until the client terminated the relationship, citing incompetent project management as the primary reason.
The Human Cost: Employee Experience Outside the Circle
For the majority of TechVision employees who existed outside the circles of favor, the work experience deteriorated significantly between 2018 and 2022. Exit interviews and employee satisfaction surveys revealed a consistent narrative:
Declining Engagement
Employee engagement scores dropped from 76% in 2017 to 48% in 2021. The most significant declines appeared in metrics related to fairness, recognition, and career development—all areas directly affected by favoritism.
High-Potential Attrition
Between 2019 and 2021, TechVision lost 37% of employees rated as "high potential" in performance reviews who were not connected to the inner circle to competing organizations. Exit interviews consistently cited perceived favoritism and limited advancement opportunities as primary drivers for departure.
Adaptation Strategies
Remaining employees developed various coping mechanisms in response to the favoritism culture:
Strategic Mimicry: Some employees attempted to adopt the communication styles, work habits, and even personal interests of executives, hoping to gain favorite status through similarity.
Parallel Recognition Systems: Certain teams established unofficial peer recognition programs to compensate for the biased formal recognition system.
External Focus: Many high-performers redirected their energy toward building industry reputations through conference presentations and open-source contributions rather than seeking internal advancement.
Psychological Withdrawal: A significant portion of employees simply disengaged, performing adequately but withholding discretionary effort and innovative ideas.
A particularly telling incident occurred during a town hall meeting in late 2021 when an anonymous question through the digital Q&A tool asked CEO Rajen Mehta directly about favoritism. The question received the highest number of "upvotes" in the company's history but was skipped during the session, further confirming employees' perception that the issue was deliberately ignored.
The Breaking Point: Market Consequences Emerge
By early 2022, the internal dysfunction began manifesting in market consequences that could no longer be ignored. Several critical developments forced a reckoning:
Competitive Positioning Decline
Industry analysts downgraded TechVision in their vendor assessments, with Gartner moving the company from "Leader" to "Challenger" in the fintech services quadrant. The report specifically cited "inconsistent delivery quality" and "signs of organizational misalignment" as factors in the downgrade.
Growth Stagnation
After years of 25-30% annual growth, TechVision's revenue plateaued in FY2021-22 with growth of just 4%, significantly underperforming the sector average of 18%. New client acquisition declined by 40% compared to previous years.
Talent Brand Damage
TechVision's reputation as an employer deteriorated among engineering talent in key markets. Campus recruitment yield from top engineering institutions dropped from 72% in 2018 to 36% in 2022, with candidates citing "concerns about company culture" in feedback surveys.
Innovation Gap
Competitors launched several features similar to those that had languished in TechVision's development backlog due to resources being allocated to favorites' pet projects rather than market-driven initiatives. This created a perception that TechVision had lost its innovative edge.
Let us investigate Favoritism as a phenomenon.
Playing Favorites: The Hidden Impact of Favoritism in Organizational Culture
The phenomenon of favoritism operates like an invisible current, simultaneously shaping workplace dynamics while often remaining unacknowledged. This seemingly innocuous human tendency to prefer certain individuals over others transforms into a powerful force when manifested within organizational hierarchies, capable of either catalyzing exceptional performance or corroding the very foundation of workplace culture.
The practice of "playing favorites" exists along a spectrum—from the subtle, perhaps unconscious preferential treatment of certain team members to the explicit elevation of a select few based on personal relationships rather than merit. This analysis explores the multifaceted nature of favoritism in organizations, examining its origins, manifestations, and far-reaching consequences while questioning whether any degree of preferential treatment can exist without undermining organizational health.
The Roots of Organizational Favoritism
Favoritism rarely emerges in isolation. Rather, it often stems from leadership behaviors that cascade throughout an organization's structure. When executives demonstrate clear preferences for certain subordinates, they implicitly sanction a culture where personal biases influence professional decisions. This phenomenon, sometimes referred to as the "trickle-down effect" of favoritism, establishes an unwritten rulebook for acceptable conduct.
Organizations vulnerable to endemic favoritism typically share certain characteristics. They often lack transparent performance metrics, maintain ambiguous promotion criteria, and operate in industries where subjective evaluation holds significant weight. The absence of clear standards creates fertile ground for personal preferences to supersede objective assessment.
These conditions contribute to what organizational psychologists describe as "similarity bias"—the natural human tendency to gravitate toward individuals who reflect our own characteristics, values, or backgrounds. Leaders, being human, naturally find themselves drawn to employees who remind them of themselves, creating an unconscious echo chamber of preferential treatment that reinforces existing power structures.
The Selection Mechanism: How Favorites Are Chosen
The criteria leaders employ when differentiating between favorites and others reveal significant insights about organizational values. In theory, favoritism based purely on performance metrics might appear justified. Yet research suggests that the selection process frequently incorporates factors beyond objective accomplishment.
Studies examining leader-member exchange relationships indicate that favorites are often chosen based on a complex interplay of factors: perceived competence certainly, but also interpersonal chemistry, communication style compatibility, shared values, and even superficial similarities in background or personality. The "halo effect"—where positive impressions in one area influence overall perception—further complicates objective assessment.
Perhaps most troublingly, proximity and accessibility play outsized roles in the development of favorite status. Employees with more face time with leadership, whether due to office location, job function, or social opportunity, gain disproportionate advantages in becoming favorites. This creates inherent structural inequities, particularly in hybrid or remote work environments where physical presence varies.
The psychology underlying favoritism reveals that leaders often select favorites who validate their worldview or leadership approach. This self-reinforcing cycle creates blind spots where leaders become insulated from constructive criticism precisely because their inner circle consists of those predisposed to agreement.
The Currency of Favoritism: Tangible and Intangible Rewards
The rewards distributed through favoritism systems operate on multiple levels, ranging from the explicitly tangible to the subtly psychological. On the material spectrum, favorites typically receive preferential access to career-advancing opportunities: high-visibility projects, promotions, salary increases, flexible scheduling, and resource allocation. These advantages compound over time, creating diverging career trajectories based on initial favorite status rather than ongoing performance.
However, the intangible rewards often prove equally significant. Favorites gain invaluable social capital through increased access to leaders' time, attention, and mental bandwidth. They receive the benefit of the doubt during mistakes, experience greater autonomy in their roles, and benefit from enhanced psychological safety. Their ideas receive more serious consideration, and their contributions more public recognition.
Perhaps most significantly, favorites gain privileged access to informal organizational knowledge—the unwritten rules, emerging strategic priorities, and political landscape that constitute the hidden curriculum of organizational success. This informational asymmetry creates compounding advantages that extend far beyond the immediate benefits of preferential treatment.
The distribution pattern of these rewards reveals how deeply embedded favoritism becomes in organizational systems. What begins as seemingly minor preferences gradually transforms into structural advantages that reshape career trajectories, often without clear documentation or acknowledgment of the process.
The Managerial Imperative: Why Leaders Perpetuate Favoritism
Despite widespread recognition of favoritism's potentially detrimental effects, the practice persists across organizations of varying sizes, industries, and cultures. This persistence suggests that managers derive certain benefits from maintaining favorite-based systems, whether consciously or unconsciously.
Leaders often justify favoritism as a form of efficient delegation. By creating a trusted inner circle, executives reduce their cognitive load, enabling faster decision-making through reliance on proven relationships. This cognitive shortcut allows managers to navigate complex organizational demands without constantly reassessing team member capabilities.
From a strategic perspective, favoritism can function as an implicit reward system, creating competitive dynamics that motivate performance. Some managers deliberately maintain visible "favorite" positions to encourage others to strive for similar status, effectively using social recognition as a zero-cost motivational tool.
Additionally, the practice offers psychological benefits to managers themselves. Maintaining a circle of favorites reduces the emotional labor of leadership by creating comfortable, predictable interactions with aligned team members. This emotional refuge becomes particularly valuable during organizational turbulence or high-pressure periods.
However, these short-term efficiency gains often mask the longer-term costs. The momentary benefit of working primarily with favorites eventually creates informational blind spots, talent development imbalances, and cultural fissures that undermine organizational resilience.
The Erosion of Objectivity: How Favoritism Corrupts Organizational Judgment
One of the most insidious consequences of entrenched favoritism is the gradual deterioration of objective decision-making within organizations. This erosion follows a predictable pattern that ultimately compromises organizational effectiveness at fundamental levels.
Initially, favoritism distorts performance evaluation by applying different standards to favored versus non-favored employees. The same behavior—whether initiative, error, or innovation—receives dramatically different interpretations based on the performer's status within the favorite hierarchy. This inconsistent application of standards creates a parallel reality where perception increasingly diverges from objective performance.
As this pattern persists, organizational leadership loses the capacity for accurate talent assessment. The confirmation bias inherent in favoritism systems causes leaders to selectively interpret information in ways that reinforce existing preferences. Accomplishments by favorites receive amplified recognition while equivalent or superior achievements by non-favorites go unacknowledged or are attributed to external factors rather than individual capability.
Perhaps most damaging, this distortion eventually corrupts data-driven decision processes. When subjective bias consistently overrides objective metrics, organizations gradually abandon rigorous measurement altogether. The resulting "evaluation theater" maintains the appearance of meritocracy while actually operating on relationship-based advancement. Performance reviews, once designed as objective assessment tools, transform into post-hoc justifications for predetermined favoritism-based decisions.
The loss of objectivity ultimately creates a dangerous disconnect between the organization's perception of its talent landscape and reality. Strategic decisions based on this distorted view—from succession planning to resource allocation—increasingly fail to align with actual organizational capabilities, creating systemic vulnerabilities that may remain invisible until crisis reveals them.
The Incompetence Paradox: How Favoritism Rewards Mediocrity
Among the most counterintuitive outcomes of persistent favoritism is what organizational theorists term the "incompetence paradox"—the phenomenon where favoritism systems gradually elevate less competent individuals into positions of increasing authority. This paradoxical outcome emerges through several interconnected mechanisms.
First, favoritism fundamentally alters the reward structure for favored employees. When advancement depends primarily on relationship maintenance rather than performance excellence, favorites rationally focus their energy on cultivating leader relationships instead of developing core competencies. The protective umbrella of favorite status removes natural consequences for performance gaps, eliminating the very feedback necessary for skill development.
Simultaneously, the insulation from critique creates dangerous blind spots for favorites themselves. Without honest feedback about developmental needs, they remain unaware of critical skill deficiencies that would typically drive improvement. This artificial environment breeds a particular type of incompetence—one characterized not by lack of potential but by systematic underdevelopment of capabilities due to absent growth pressure.
As these underdeveloped favorites advance into senior positions based on relationship rather than readiness, they bring significant capability gaps to roles with expanding responsibilities. Their promotion creates cascading consequences throughout the organization, including implementation failures on strategic initiatives, poor resource allocation decisions, and the establishment of dysfunctional team dynamics replicating their own experience.
Perhaps most perniciously, this cycle becomes self-reinforcing. Incompetent leaders promoted through favoritism typically lack the self-awareness and evaluative skills necessary to recognize merit in others. Instead, they perpetuate the favoritism cycle by promoting individuals who pose no competence threat to their position, creating generational incompetence that becomes increasingly difficult to reverse.
Organizations experiencing this pattern often witness a gradual but unmistakable decline in performance standards as the definition of "acceptable" continuously adjusts downward to accommodate the capabilities of favorite-selected leadership. This normalization of incompetence ultimately reshapes organizational culture itself, establishing mediocrity as the unspoken standard.
The Behavioral Toxicity of Favored Status: When Preference Breeds Dysfunction
The dysfunctional behaviors exhibited by organizational favorites constitute one of favoritism's most visible and damaging manifestations. Protected by their special status, favorites often develop behavioral patterns that would trigger corrective action in other employees but instead continue unchecked due to their privileged position.
Among the most common toxic behaviors is the development of territorial defensiveness. Secure in their position but insecure about their actual capabilities, favorites frequently establish information monopolies, refusing to share critical knowledge that might empower potential competitors. This knowledge hoarding not only undermines organizational efficiency but creates dangerous single points of failure in operational systems.
Equally problematic, many favorites develop inflated assessments of their own contributions while simultaneously devaluing others' work. This attribution distortion manifests in credit appropriation for team successes coupled with blame deflection for failures. The resulting environment creates profound demotivation among team members who see their contributions systematically minimized while watching favorites receive disproportionate recognition for collective achievements.
Status exploitation represents another common pattern, where favorites leverage their privileged position to extract benefits or avoid responsibilities. This might include requesting special accommodations, declining undesirable assignments, or demanding resources disproportionate to actual needs. These behaviors, visible throughout the organization, establish destructive norms that undermine basic principles of fairness.
Perhaps most corrosive to organizational culture, favorites often become informal powerbrokers, developing what anthropologists describe as "shadow hierarchies" that operate parallel to formal organizational structures. Through implied access to leadership, favorites influence decisions outside their formal authority, creating confusion about actual decision rights and accountability.
Leaders inadvertently reinforce these behaviors by failing to apply consistent standards to favorites, creating permission structures for continued dysfunction. Over time, this behavioral toxicity spreads beyond the favorites themselves, as other employees either emulate the successful strategy or develop counter-behaviors designed to protect themselves within an increasingly political environment.
The Merit Argument: Can Favoritism Ever Be Justified?
Proponents of certain forms of favoritism argue that differential treatment based on demonstrated excellence represents not bias but appropriate recognition of extraordinary contribution. This perspective maintains that showing preferential treatment to exceptionally competent colleagues constitutes good leadership rather than problematic favoritism.
There exists some empirical support for this position. High-performing organizations often practice what might be termed "transparent meritocracy"—where exceptional performers receive visibly different opportunities and rewards based on clear, communicated criteria. When preferential treatment links directly to objective accomplishment through transparent mechanisms, it can indeed drive organizational performance.
The distinction between merit-based differentiation and problematic favoritism hinges on several critical factors: transparency in criteria, consistency in application, and fairness in opportunity. Merit-based systems function effectively when:
Performance standards are clearly articulated and universally understood
Assessment processes incorporate multiple perspectives to minimize individual bias
All employees receive equitable access to development opportunities
Recognition reflects demonstrated capabilities rather than personal affinity
Organizations successfully implementing such systems typically invest heavily in objective assessment frameworks, transparent feedback processes, and robust career development pathways that mitigate the influence of subjective preference. Under these conditions, differential treatment based on performance can strengthen rather than undermine organizational culture.
The Collateral Damage: Impact on Non-Favorites
While favorites experience an enriched organizational environment, those outside the circle of preference often encounter a significantly different workplace reality. The psychological impact on non-favorites represents one of favoritism's most serious organizational costs.
Research in organizational psychology reveals that perceived favoritism triggers a cascade of negative responses among non-favored employees. These typically include decreased motivation, reduced organizational commitment, heightened cynicism, and diminished citizenship behaviors. The perception that advancement depends more on relationship management than actual contribution fundamentally undermines the psychological contract between employee and organization.
More concerning, favoritism creates dysfunctional adaptations. Non-favorites frequently respond by:
Engaging in impression management rather than focusing on substantive contribution
Forming counter-coalitions that further fragment organizational culture
Withholding ideas and reducing collaborative engagement
Developing learned helplessness regarding their potential for advancement
Eventually withdrawing emotionally while physically remaining in role
These responses translate directly into measurable organizational costs: increased turnover among high-potential employees outside the favorite circle, reduced innovation as diverse perspectives withdraw from discourse, and diminished overall productivity as energy diverts toward navigating the politics of preference rather than creating value.
The talent management implications prove particularly severe. Organizations practicing extensive favoritism effectively select against diversity of thought, approach, and background—creating homogeneous leadership pipelines that perpetuate existing biases rather than building adaptive capacity.
Managing the Middle: Strategies for Non-Favored Employees
Organizations rarely address the experience of non-favorites directly, leaving individuals to develop their own strategies for navigating environments where preferential treatment exists. Effective approaches for those who perceive themselves outside the circle of preference balance pragmatism with professional integrity.
Successful non-favorites typically employ several key strategies:
They focus on building broad relationship networks rather than fixating on gaining favorite status with specific leaders. This distributed approach creates alternative pathways to influence and information access while reducing vulnerability to any single relationship.
They deliberately seek objective, measurable contributions that demonstrate value independent of relationship quality. By creating documentable impact, they establish a performance record that becomes increasingly difficult to disregard regardless of favorite status.
They strategically align with organizational priorities while maintaining authentic work styles. Rather than attempting personality mimicry to gain favorite status, they identify how their natural strengths can address critical organizational needs.
Most importantly, effective non-favorites maintain perspective about the temporary and contextual nature of favorite status. They recognize that organizational priorities and leadership preferences evolve over time, creating ongoing shifts in the landscape of preference.
Organizations invested in mitigating favoritism's negative effects can support these individual strategies through structured mentoring programs, diverse project assignment processes, and regular rotation of team compositions to prevent calcification of preferential patterns.
Building Beyond Favoritism: Creating Cultures of Excellence
The fundamental question remains: Can organizations build truly excellent cultures without playing favorites? Evidence suggests not only that this is possible, but that the most sustainably high-performing organizations actively work to minimize unwarranted preferential treatment.
Organizations successfully transcending favoritism dynamics share several common characteristics:
They implement rigorous, multi-rater feedback systems that capture diverse perspectives on performance, reducing the impact of any single leader's preferences. These systems incorporate both quantitative metrics and qualitative assessment against clearly articulated standards.
They practice radical transparency regarding decision criteria for assignments, promotions, and recognition. When the rules of advancement become explicit, the perception of arbitrary preference diminishes, even when outcomes differ among employees.
They create structured exposure opportunities ensuring all team members gain access to leadership visibility. Regular rotation of presentation responsibilities, cross-functional project teams, and deliberate mentoring pairings prevent the emergence of permanent in-groups based on initial impressions or accessibility.
Perhaps most importantly, these organizations cultivate psychological safety—environments where employees feel secure expressing dissenting views without fear of relationship damage. When organizational culture values constructive challenge over conformity, the currency of favorite status dramatically devalues.
Leaders in such organizations practice what might be termed "conscious impartiality"—the deliberate monitoring of their own preference patterns coupled with intentional investment in relationships with diverse team members. This practice requires significant self-awareness and emotional discipline but yields substantial dividends in team performance and talent development.
Beyond the Binary: Reframing the Favoritism Paradigm
The discourse surrounding favoritism often presupposes a binary distinction—either organizations play favorites or they don't. A more nuanced understanding recognizes that all human systems involve preference, but the nature, transparency, and basis of that preference determines its organizational impact.
Rather than attempting to eliminate preference entirely—an unrealistic aim given human psychology—high-functioning organizations channel natural affinity into productive structures. They acknowledge that leaders will inevitably connect more easily with certain team members while implementing systems ensuring such connections don't determine opportunity distribution.
This approach shifts from attempting to eliminate favoritism to managing preference constructively through several key practices:
Distinguishing between affinity (natural interpersonal chemistry) and advantage (preferential access to opportunity)
Creating structured rotation of high-visibility opportunities independent of leader preference
Implementing decision protocols requiring multiple perspectives before significant resource allocation
Cultivating organizational narratives that celebrate diverse contributions rather than conformity
Regularly auditing outcomes for patterns suggesting preference-based rather than merit-based advancement
When implemented effectively, these practices create what organizational theorists describe as "managed preference systems"—environments acknowledging natural human affinity while preventing such affinity from determining career trajectories.
The Leadership Imperative: Courage in Confronting Bias
Ultimately, addressing favoritism requires more than structural interventions—it demands courageous leadership willing to confront uncomfortable truths about human bias. Leaders committed to building truly excellent cultures must cultivate what psychologists term "preference awareness"—the conscious monitoring of their own tendency toward favoritism.
This awareness begins with regular self-examination regarding decision patterns. Effective leaders routinely ask themselves challenging questions: Whose ideas receive my immediate attention? Who benefits from my benefit of the doubt? Whose development receives my greatest investment? When patterns emerge suggesting preference-based rather than merit-based treatment, ethical leaders intervene in their own behavior.
Beyond self-monitoring, transformative leaders actively seek diverse perspectives on their decision-making patterns. They create feedback mechanisms allowing team members to safely highlight perceived favoritism and respond to such feedback with curiosity rather than defensiveness.
Most importantly, they model transparency by acknowledging the universal human tendency toward preference while demonstrating commitment to fair systems. This authentic approach—admitting the challenge rather than denying its existence—creates psychological safety for organizational dialogue about favoritism's impact.
The most effective leaders recognize that addressing favoritism constitutes not a one-time initiative but an ongoing practice requiring perpetual vigilance. They approach preference management as a core leadership discipline rather than an occasional corrective measure.
Toward Conscious Organization
The journey beyond favoritism leads not to preference-free organizations—an unattainable and perhaps undesirable state—but toward what might be termed "preference-conscious" cultures. These environments acknowledge the reality of human affinity while implementing structures ensuring such affinity doesn't determine opportunity distribution.
In such cultures, leaders practice conscious impartiality, team members receive equitable access to development, and advancement follows transparent, merit-based pathways visible to all organizational members. Diversity of thought receives not just rhetorical support but structural protection through systems designed to counter unconscious bias.
This evolution requires sustained commitment from organizational leadership, courageous self-examination from managers at all levels, and active participation from team members in creating cultures of fairness. The investment proves substantial but yields remarkable returns: enhanced innovation through diverse contribution, improved retention of high-potential talent, and strengthened organizational resilience through genuine inclusion.
In the final analysis, the question isn't whether organizations can eliminate favoritism entirely, but whether they can channel natural human preference into systems that recognize excellence while preserving fairness. The evidence suggests that organizations committed to this balance create not just more equitable environments but more effective ones—cultures where talent flourishes based on contribution rather than connection, and where excellence emerges from the full participation of all organizational members.
The path beyond playing favorites leads not away from excellence but toward its fullest expression—organizational cultures where preferential treatment based on demonstrated capability reinforces rather than undermines the fundamental promise that effort, ability and contribution determine advancement. In such environments, the question of favoritism transforms from a cultural liability into a strategic advantage—the deliberate deployment of preference based not on personal affinity but on organizational value.
TechVision - The Intervention: Board Involvement and Recovery Efforts
In April 2022, TechVision's board of directors, alarmed by the deteriorating performance indicators, commissioned an independent organizational assessment. The resulting report identified favoritism as a central factor in the company's decline, documenting specific patterns and their business impact.
The board took several decisive actions:
Leadership Changes: CEO Rajen Mehta was asked to transition to a non-executive chairman role. Several members of the inner circle, including Anand Kumar and Priya Desai, HR head were replaced with external hires.
Structural Reforms: The company implemented a multi-rater feedback system for all promotion and significant assignment decisions, reducing the influence of any single leader's preferences.
Talent Recovery: A comprehensive talent review identified overlooked high-performers who had been marginalized by favoritism. Several were promoted into key positions, including Sunil Mehrotra, who became the new Head of Banking Products. New CHRO was hired to attract professional talent.
Cultural Reset: The new leadership team explicitly acknowledged the previous favoritism issues and established clear principles for equitable treatment, including transparent decision criteria for advancement opportunities.
Recovery and Lessons Learned
By late 2023, TechVision showed early signs of recovery. Employee engagement scores had increased to 62%, client satisfaction metrics showed improvement, and the company had returned to modest but healthy growth of 15%.
The TechVision case illustrates several crucial lessons about organizational favoritism:
Systemic Impact: What began as seemingly minor preferential treatment at the executive level cascaded into systemic dysfunction affecting every aspect of the business, from innovation to client satisfaction to talent retention.
Competence Erosion: The most damaging consequence of favoritism wasn't simply unfairness but the gradual elevation of less qualified individuals into positions of increasing responsibility, creating compounding performance issues.
Cultural Contagion: Favoritism behaviors spread through the organization as leaders at each level emulated the pattern established by executives, creating multiple layers of preferred in-groups.
Market Consequences: While favoritism's impact initially remained contained within the organization, it eventually manifested in market performance through quality issues, innovation gaps, and reputation damage.
Recovery Requirements: Addressing entrenched favoritism required intervention at multiple levels—leadership changes, structural reforms, explicit cultural reset, and deliberate talent recovery efforts.
The TechVision story serves as a cautionary tale about how quickly a promising organizational culture can deteriorate when favoritism becomes normalized. It also demonstrates that recovery, while challenging, remains possible when the issue is acknowledged and addressed comprehensively.
Epilogue: Sustainable Prevention
In 2024, TechVision implemented several innovative practices designed to prevent the re-emergence of favoritism, including:
Quarterly "preference audits" examining patterns in resource allocation, promotion, and assignment decisions
Deliberate rotation of high-visibility project responsibilities among qualified team members
Anonymous channels for reporting perceived favoritism with protection from retaliation
Leadership development focused explicitly on preference awareness and bias mitigation
These measures have helped transform TechVision from a cautionary tale into a model for how organizations can address and prevent the organizational malaise of favoritism.
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