Favouritism, a leader’s blind spot

Last week my wife, Jude, and I enjoyed watching a series on TV. Part of the plot of one episode was a staff member complaining ?to the owner of a business that the owner was favouring one employee over others. The interesting part that the script writer chose to describe, which often reflects real life, is that the boss didn’t realise she was favouring one person. The boss was blind to her behaviour and the impact on the team.

The underlying issue is that humans are social beings with a deep need to belong. Belonging means feeling connected and valued in a group. Behaviours by a leader that signal favouritism undermines belonging and drives a wedge between team members. People intuit that they are either part of a favoured ’in group’, and if not part of the ‘in group’ then by default people are pushed into an ‘out group’. The resultant division in the team has been caused by the leader.

The critical thing is that it’s mostly to do with the behaviours of the leader; team members can’t read what’s in the leader’s mind, but they can observe behaviours and how those behaviours make them feel. Over my career, I’ve observed a range to favouritism behaviours by leaders. Here are the most frequent:

·?????? Spending unequal amounts of time with certain individuals.

·?????? Demonstrating greater interest in the responsibilities or tasks of selected team members rather than equally interested in everyone’s role.

·?????? Always going for coffee or lunch with selected team members.

·?????? Giving little gifts to some people but not others (a take-away coffee, a chocolate bar…).

·?????? Closed-door conversations with selected individuals.

·?????? Warmer language with some people compared to others.

·?????? Praise given consistently to certain individuals and not others.

·?????? Consistently delegating attractive tasks or projects to some people.

·?????? In team meetings, prioritising some people’s subjects – and running out of time for others (“Sorry Andrew, we have run out of time for the HR update – we’ll pick that up next time.”).

Favouritism – or lack of – featured strongly in my research into leadership in First Nation societies. When I asked people about the characteristics of a good leader, invariably ‘having no favourites’ was mentioned as one of the attributes. This was the case in such diverse societies as Himba society in Namibia, where communities are structured around villages of about 30-50 people up to Mohawk society in North America where leadership jobs can involve leading thousands of people. One of the Himba people I interviewed was 18-year-old Urprua (pictured above). I asked her what makes for a good leader in her society. In a short list of attributes she nominated, ‘Having no favourites.’ She then added, poetically, ‘A leader with favourites is like a grandmother who has favourites among the grandchildren.’

I hope favouritism wasn’t a blind spot of mine when I was a leader. While leaders might have better chemistry with some team members, the point is that we shouldn’t show it in our behaviours. The fastest way to create factions in a team is for the leader to show favouritism to some team members.

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