Leadership & Teamwork
Stop Playing Favourites
“Let’s nip favouritism at the bud and create a healthy work environment.”
Favouritism is referred to as favouring of one over another or unfair treatment of a person or group on the basis of prejudice. Favouritism at the work place reflects badly on the management, yet most people have experienced and perhaps been on the wrong end of blatant favouritism at some point in their career.
New leaders come in from outside and bring along old teams, pushing the existing employees aside. Some managers are so biased that they delegate responsibility only to their favourite teams, leaving the rest of the staff feeling neglected and under- utilized. No matter what their job performance might have been, some employees are never promoted or appreciated for their perseverance.
Favouritism on the job gives rise to jealousy, frustration and lack of respect. Whatever may be the reason, favouritism stymies the employees’ potential, in turn affecting their performance. Having frustrated and unhappy employees is the surest way to kill your business.
We all have the tendency to favour those who favour us, even if we don’t mean to do so. Have you ever played favourites?
Executive coach, Marshall Goldsmith, suggests a very interesting approach to analyse whether you or not play favourites.
- First, understand how much people you favour, actually like you?
- Second, evaluate their contribution to your company and your customers?
- Third, check the amount of positive personal recognition you give them?
Now, find out whether the correlation is stronger between one and three or two and three. If your recognition is linked to how much people seem to like you, rather than how they perform, then you are playing favourites.
Does this simple evaluation throw light on your behaviour? If yes, then understand first that like the analysis, the solution too is simple and effective. Become aware of your actions while at work and take necessary corrective actions.
Even if favouritism at the work place exists only within one person or a small group of people, it impacts the entire work- force.
Hence, it is critical for the management to stay on the top, detect favouritism and kill before it gets out of control.