Favoritism makes us quietly wonder whether we have a seat at the table, or just a folding chair in the hallway. Over time, it erodes everything we’re working so hard to build: engagement, culture, performance, and even our health and well-being. We've all felt the sting of exclusion. But here’s the twist: what we label as “favoritism” often isn’t that at all. The real culprit usually lives somewhere else entirely. That’s what we’re going to unpack next.
The feeling of exclusion is uniquely painful whether you're five years old or sixty. It's the perception that your strengths and contributions either weren't valued or were overlooked. It comes as no surprise that favoritism, in any form, throws a wrench in our progress. In the short term it squashes leading indicators, like our effort, intentions to stay, and performance. Then at scale it suppresses lagging indicators like retention, engagement performance, and innovation. In short, it drags down every part of our organizational ecosystem.
When we perceive others as favored it instantly affects our motivation. In our work with organizations supporting employee engagement and retention we see this vividly in surveys and performance feedback. We start down a negative doom spiral questioning if our outputs and effort matches what we're receiving in return. As this happens deadlines may go missed, production times increase, relationships are stifled, and innovation slows.
Then, being human, many of us share our perceptions and experiences with others — “Am I the only one who feels this way?” Over time, stories and beliefs about favoritism start to circulate. They shape how we see future decisions and can lead to higher turnover. In response, employees look for opportunities where they feel their contributions will be recognized and rewarded fairly, whether that means joining another organization or quietly pulling back and opting out — even when their sense of favoritism comes from hearing about others’ experiences rather than their own.
Of course, it's natural to feel we're not the "preferred one," or that a decision fell short of fair, from time to time. That's why favoritism falls under the umbrella of what organizational psychologists, and others, call incivility. When experienced frequently, these low-intensity behaviors leave us questioning if the behavior was intentional (I don't belong and my efforts and talents do not matter) or just a normal event or accident (I'm having a bad day, or my manager is.). So, what are some events that tally up over time could contribute to believing it's favoritism (that we see on the regular in employee feedback and engagement surveys)?
Favoritism often gets the spotlight and called out as cronyism, nepotism, bias, or just plain discrimination. Even if we aren't directly affected, perceiving unfairness at work chips away at our buy-in to the organization's culture and mission. We start to question if leaders truly believe in something when they make so many decisions to the contrary. Not only do we start to doubt the values our organization espouses, but start to question our trust in leadership.
We have good news and bad news.
The good: most of what employees call out as favoritism wasn't an intentional act.
The bad: it still carries the same consequences.
Most of the time poor communication and a lack of clear direction from leadership are to blame. Think about it: if we don't understand why we're not receiving the same results and recognition for our performance as our peers, we may determine that decisions are made based on personal preference or choosing favorites.
If we don't understand the criteria for promotions, scheduling, standards, rewards, or assignments, it's understandable we'll reach the conclusion that decisions are based on personal preferences rather than merit.
Photo by Igor Omilaev on Unsplash
The upside is that favoritism caused by poor communication has more straightforward solutions.
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A few key data points tell us how frequently this happens -
When favoritism as a common complaint and key driver of low engagement and retention, it's most often that a lack of clarity, not cronyism or preferential treatment, is the cause. But these simple preventable mistakes still carry a significant cost to both our workforce and achieving key results.
We covered communication, but that's hard to execute if a definition of success, or criteria for how decisions are made, don't exist. We can't clearly communicate something we don't know or understand. This lack of objective criteria opens the door to partiality, as personal biases and preferences inadvertently seep into judgments and decision-making. Even if we're not letting our own bias cloud decision-making, employees are dizzied by the zig-zag changes in how we make decisions. How strong and embedded are these within your operations?
When we hear about preferential treatment or favoritism, most of the time missing communication and direction are at fault. So, what about when it is truly driven by a personal bias or preference not grounded in what's the health of the organization?
Tackling true favoritism, and personal preference in work teams, usually requires more than one solution. Why not start with education? Focused training and development for new leaders in how to make evidence-based decisions and communicate them to the team. We can't be aware of our potential for bias without understanding ourselves first. Leadership assessments, situational cases, and other support builds leadership self-awareness and equips them with the skills to recognize and manage their biases. New leaders may not recognize the slippery path to bad decisions. While tenured leaders know how important decisions and stress can lead us to choose who 'is most like us,' new leaders lack this experience.
Education and training can also support team-based decision-making and inclusion. The power of the perspectives of others can reduce the risk of a misguided decision. By demanding a culture of continuous learning and self-reflection, organizations empower leaders to create a more equitable environment. This approach also enhances transparency and accountability, as decisions are made collectively rather than unilaterally.
Lastly, assessments for hiring and promotion can highlight vulnerabilities in decision-making. For example, a potential leader high in agreeableness, a validated and often positive personality trait, may be more vulnerable to form personal bonds with employees that lead to less-than-productive cliques and unequal treatment. Leaders who underestimate risk, or struggle to understand and manage multiple perspectives at once, may also be prone to "go with what they know." While these qualities don't automatically prohibit a new hire or promotion, a well-designed assessment and structured interview process will equip leaders with an understanding of the strengths and opportunities of new leadership. Then individual assessment and interview results can inform new leader training and coaching.
To sum it all up, mitigating favoritism starts with awareness. By implementing these strategies, organizations can create a more inclusive and equitable environment that values diversity and promotes fairness.
We've been talking about favoritism with the assumption that's it not rooted in protected characteristics like race, gender, or age. Clearly, decisions linked to a legally protected class places business is at risk of significant legal repercussions. In 2024, for example, the United States Supreme Court ruled on the case of a female St. Louis police officer, Jatonya Clayborn Muldrow. The officer was transferred from an intelligence unit to patrol but retained her rank and pay. The city argued the transfer wasn't discriminatory - there was no loss of pay, demotion, or firing. However, the Supreme Court asserted that a job change that causes even some unwanted harm or change to the terms and conditions of employment can be challenged as discrimination.
Even when behaviors or decisions appear to lack any connection to a protected class, it may have one indirectly. For example, Officer Muldrow was replaced in the intelligence unit by a man. It may only take one allegation to put the organization at risk. This could take the form of official legal action or employees and stakeholders questioning the human and moral goodness of an organization they once trusted.
Our motivation here is to highlight the harm, to both the humans at work and the organization, that stems from favoritism and the poor decisions surrounding it. It's often grounded in something preventable: missing or misguided systems, fast and faulty decision-making, and teams missing the resources, training and support they need to be successful.
If you took thirty seconds to think across the people you influence, what's one realistic change that would meaningfully increase perceptions of fairness and create easier and better decision-making? What would happen if you made that change? If you don't?