Is Playing Favorites All That Bad?

“Don’t play favorites” is commonly espoused wisdom, but a university study finds some positives in certain circumstances in the practice.

“Favoritism is a double-edged sword,” said Haoying (Howie) Xu, an assistant professor of management at Stevens Institute of Technology and lead study author, in a statement. “It can be harmful to team dynamics, but in the right circumstances it can also help organizations to succeed.”

The study analyzed the dynamics of employees and supervisors of 200 different Chinese companies across different industries, encompassing over 1,100 employees.

Teams that were already well structured were found to perform worse and were more likely to have disagreements and conflict when bosses played favorites. Researchers reasoned that under more structured organizations, employees properly aligned in positions of authority based on their skill sets helped drive performance levels.

On the other hand, less structured teams with a biased boss ended up doing better across the entire study because leadership biases create structure and help employees work together more effectively.

“When teams lack obvious hierarchies, it helps if the boss sends clear signals about who’s on top and who is expected to take a more subordinate role,” said Xu. “The key point is that playing favorite has clear positive and negative effects, so leaders need to ensure they’re paying attention to how their favoritism is affecting their team.”

In a follow-up Harvard Business Review article, Xu and two other contributing writers noted that Xu’s research shows playing favorites can inspire others on the team. They wrote, “If the ‘boss’s favorite’ is perceived as expressing authentic rather than hubristic pride, researchers found that witnessing favoritism could actually motivate other employees to improve and build stronger relationships themselves.”

However, much of the research on favoritism has focused solely on its negative impacts on the workplace, with much of the advice focused on reducing favoritism.

A study from Fisher College of Business at Ohio State University based on a survey found that employees “not only deemed favoritism as a form of workplace injustice/unfairness, but also reacted to favoritism behaviors with negative emotions toward the organization, less loyalty to the company, less job satisfaction, stronger intentions to quit the job, less work motivation, and more emotional exhaustion.”

In an interview with Harvard Business Review, Ginka Toegel, professor of organizational behavior and leadership at IMD Business School in Lausanne, Switzerland, said that when unfavorites “feel undervalued, underappreciated, demotivated,” they “perceive the work environment as toxic” and the company risks reputational damage and heavy turnover costs.

Toegel wrote in an HBR article, “Tremendous opportunity lies in learning to better manage your out-group. Even a modest increase in consideration, coaching, and appreciation can boost productivity, well-being, and cohesion.”