Free Assessment
Am I Playing Favorites?
Think you treat everyone equally? This quiz reveals unconscious favoritism patterns across 5 dimensions. 15 questions, no email required.
15 questions · About 4 minutes · No email required
What This Assessment Measures
Every manager believes they treat their team fairly. Almost none of them are entirely right. Favoritism in management is rarely intentional. It grows quietly through natural human tendencies: spending more time with people you like, giving better projects to people you trust, softening feedback for people you are close to. Over time, these small preferences become structural patterns that your whole team can see, even when you cannot.
This assessment measures favoritism across five dimensions: Access Inequality (who gets your time and information), Feedback Bias (who gets coached vs. managed), Assignment Patterns (who gets the growth opportunities), Social Proximity (who is in the inner circle), and Perception Blind Spots (whether you can see the patterns at all). Together, they reveal not just whether you play favorites, but how and where.
A high score does not make you a bad manager. It makes you a normal one who now has the awareness to change. Favoritism damages trust, kills motivation for the people on the outside, and ultimately costs you good employees. The fact that you are taking this assessment means you care enough to look honestly at your own behavior. That is the first step.
This assessment takes about 4 minutes. No email address is required. Your answers are not stored anywhere.
This assessment is a self-reflection tool for managers. It is not an accusation, a personality test, or a reason to feel guilty. Its purpose is to help you recognize unconscious patterns and take intentional steps toward treating your team more equitably.
Scores by Dimension
What Your Scores Mean
Your Recommended Reading
Based on your highest-scoring dimensions, these articles will help you most.
What to Do Next
Favoritism is one of the fastest ways to lose trust as a manager. It does not matter whether it is intentional. What matters is whether your team perceives it. The good news: now that you can see the patterns, you can change them.
Audit your last two weeks
Look at your calendar. Who got the most 1-on-1 time? Who got the high-visibility assignments? Who got the detailed feedback? If the same names keep appearing, that is data, not coincidence. Write it down. Awareness without specifics fades quickly.
Ask the uncomfortable question
In your next 1-on-1 with each team member, ask: "Do you feel like opportunities and attention are distributed fairly on our team?" Then stop talking. The silence that follows is where the truth lives. Do not defend yourself. Just listen.
Build systems, not intentions
Good intentions do not fix favoritism. Systems do. Create a rotation for high-visibility projects. Prepare feedback with the same rigor for every person. Track your 1-on-1 time distribution. Make equity a process, not a feeling.
This assessment is a self-reflection tool for managers. It is not an accusation, a personality test, or a reason to feel guilty. Its purpose is to help you recognize unconscious patterns and take intentional steps toward treating your team more equitably.