Generally, the further you can get into your boss’ good books the better, but is there such a thing as being too well-liked? If you’re the favourite, you may have to deal with jealousy, diminishing trust among colleagues, and a blocked career path.
There might be no better example of everything that’s great and horrible about being the boss’ favourite than the relationship between Huma Abedin and Hillary Clinton. Beginning her career with Clinton at the age of 19, Abedin has spent the last 22 years advancing from “body woman” (essentially a personal aide) to vice-chair of Hillary’s 2016 presidential campaign.
On the other hand, according to Vanity Fair, Abedin career was irrevocably tied to her boss’s, and she faced sniping from colleagues. In the book Shattered, she was described by a fellow campaign operative as a “croc-filled moat”.
According to the a Harvard Business Review story, there are four pitfalls of being the favourite.
- Colleagues freeze you out as they view you as an informant.
- You get lost in the relationship, and your own opinions get swallowed up in the groupthink between you and your boss. This is difficult on its own, but if there’s a performance issue at work “it’s the more junior member of the duo — you — who’s most likely to be found wanting”.
- Eventually you lose your status – because it’s completely unofficial and subject to the whims of your boss – and have to deal with the fallout of no longer having the access and responsibilities you once had. This is more problematic the longer you are favoured, as you will tend to have less resources outside of the relationship to fall back on.
- Your professional goals get derailed by your boss delegating too much to you, and your colleagues calling on you to act as their intermediary. The time you have to do your own work can disappear.
To avoid these career harming problems, the article suggests that firstly, be honest with your colleagues, don’t freely pass information between them and the boss, and don’t give false impressions about the influence you have. Maintain a sense of your own career, so your accomplishments and failures remain your own. Finally, put time into figuring out your exit path by developing relationships with other leaders and, if the situation becomes sour, consider other career options.
The possibility of HR help
To some extent favouritism is natural; a feature that will occur in the ebb and flow of any organisation. But some managers use favouritism tactically, as a way to temporarily get more work out of a subordinate or even to play employees off of each in an effort to maintain control or maximum productivity from all. Donald Trump is rumoured to operate like this. While it’s true this sort of managerial style can get results in the short term, over the long term it can be quite harmful.
As outlined in this Forbes story, while it’s appropriate to reward top performers, if employees sense that rewards are unfair you will lose overall morale and see them reduce the effort they put into their professional development because the sense will be that it’s not going to help anyway – they won’t receive recognition let alone reward.
HR should obviously try to set a culture that is fair and transparent when it comes to compensation, performance reviews etc, but it’s also important to know that sometimes an isolated complaint of favouritism will come from the person being favoured, and not their disgruntled colleagues. Because often being the boss’ favourite is not a perk, it’s a weird trap from which it’s tricky to escape.
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