Table of Contents Hide

The Merit Myth: What Actually Drives Promotions
The Gender Dimension: Why Merit Matters Even Less for Women
The Reality Behind “Potential”: Code for Bias
The Cost of Playing a Rigged Game
Strategic Navigation: Playing the Game While Building Your Exit
Building Your Exit Strategy: Making Leaving a Real Option
When Staying Is Strategic, When Leaving Is Essential
The Freedom of Having Options
A Call for Honesty in Career Advice
What This Means for Your Career
Frequently Asked Questions
Sources

Most promotions aren’t about performance. They’re about politics, favoritism, and potential bias. Here’s how to protect your career—and your exit strategy.

Here’s the career advice nobody wants to give you: working hard isn’t enough. Delivering exceptional results isn’t enough. Being the most qualified person in the room often isn’t enough. The uncomfortable truth that undermines every “lean in” narrative and career development workshop is this: most workplaces don’t operate on merit.

Before you dismiss this as cynicism, consider the data. 56% of executives admitted to playing favorites when making promotion decisions, and 96% said they would promote their favorite even if another employee had stronger communication skills. Nearly half of all employees—47%—believe their manager has a clear favorite on the team. In 2025, nearly 90% of employees reported witnessing favoritism at work, and 40% admitted they considered quitting because of it.

This isn’t a minor workplace annoyance. This is the architecture of how careers actually progress—or don’t. And for women, the impact is particularly severe.

The Merit Myth: What Actually Drives Promotions

Corporate America sells a compelling story: work hard, demonstrate results, and you’ll advance. Performance reviews measure your output. Promotion criteria are objective. The system rewards excellence. It’s a beautiful narrative. It’s also largely fiction.

Research shows that 75% of employees have witnessed favoritism at work—preferential treatment based on personal relationships rather than merit. This manifests in multiple forms: promotions awarded to golfing buddies rather than top performers, high-profile projects consistently routed to the same individuals regardless of expertise, and mentorship opportunities reserved for those who share backgrounds or interests with leadership.

“Favoritism happens when certain employees get preferential treatment because of personal relationships, not because of merit or skills,” explains workplace culture research from Workhuman. The distinction matters: if someone consistently receives opportunities because of their expertise, that’s recognition of skill. If they receive those opportunities because they’re friends with the manager, that’s favoritism—and it’s pervasive.

The problem extends beyond individual managers playing favorites. Only 25% of companies assess equity metrics during manager reviews, leaving biased decisions unchallenged at the leadership level. Without visibility into promotion patterns, reward distribution, or training access, favoritism operates in the shadows, shaping careers while remaining officially unacknowledged.

The Gender Dimension: Why Merit Matters Even Less for Women

If the merit-based workplace is a myth for everyone, it’s an especially cruel fiction for women. The data reveals a systematic pattern of women being held to higher standards while receiving fewer opportunities—even when they outperform male colleagues.

McKinsey’s Women in the Workplace 2025 report found that only 93 women are promoted for every 100 men at the critical first step to management. For women of color, the disparity is even starker: only 74 women of color are promoted to manager for every 100 men. This “broken rung” on the career ladder has compounding effects—when women are systematically blocked from first-level management positions, there are fewer women to promote at every subsequent level.

Even more revealing is research from MIT Sloan associate professor Danielle Li, which found that women received higher performance ratings than male employees but received 8.3% lower ratings for “potential.” The result: female employees were on average 14% less likely to be promoted than their male colleagues, despite outperforming them.

“The result I found most depressing is that women outperform their stated potential,” Li explained in an interview. “Women have to hit a higher threshold of future performance in order to justify the same potential score.” Gender differences in potential ratings explain up to 50% of the overall gender promotion gap.

Yale research confirms this pattern: while women are 7.3% more likely than men to receive high performance ratings, their potential ratings are 5.8% lower. When researchers tracked these employees forward to the next evaluation period, they found that women with similar scores to men consistently outperformed the men—yet managers continued underestimating women’s potential.

The implications are stark. Men are promoted more often for “potential” while women must achieve hard performance results before being considered for advancement. Women prove themselves through demonstrated excellence; men advance through perceived promise.

The Reality Behind “Potential”: Code for Bias

The concept of “potential” sounds reasonable. After all, organizations need to identify future leaders. But “potential” is poorly defined, highly subjective, and—research shows—riddled with gender bias.

“What is commonly talked about in terms of potential are characteristics such as assertiveness, execution skills, charisma, leadership, ambition,” explains Yale researcher Kelly Shue. “These are real traits. They’re also highly subjective and stereotypically associated with male leaders.”

This subjectivity creates room for favoritism to masquerade as talent assessment. One respondent described the dynamic: “Women are expected to excel administratively. Any lapses in this area are perceived as lapses in competence. Men are not held to the same standard. Because women are expected to excel in administrative tasks, they are assigned more of these duties, which interfere with their leadership responsibilities. Since women do not have as much space to demonstrate leadership, this affects promotions.”

This is task assignment bias—women disproportionately take on essential but non-promotable work (administrative duties, note-taking, event planning, emotional labor) while men receive strategic, visible projects that build leadership credentials. Over time, this creates a self-fulfilling prophecy: women lack leadership experience because they weren’t given leadership opportunities, and they aren’t given leadership opportunities because they lack leadership experience.

Nearly one-third of women (29%) believe their career progress has been delayed due to their gender, compared to just 10% of men. 15% of women believe they’ve been passed over for promotion due to caregiving responsibilities—roughly double the proportion of men at 8%.

The Cost of Playing a Rigged Game

When you understand that the system isn’t merit-based, a critical question emerges: why stay and play a game you can’t win through performance alone?

Senior-level women who don’t want to advance are more likely than men to say they’ve been passed over for promotion and don’t see a realistic path to the top—factors that make career advancement seem out of reach. Six in 10 senior-level women report frequently feeling burned out, compared to only half of men at their level. When women in leadership are not interested in advancing, they point to having been passed over and to not seeing a realistic path forward.

The message women receive, repeatedly, is that their excellence doesn’t translate to advancement the way it does for male colleagues. Women are 14% less likely to be promoted than men, even when their performance evaluations are strong. Women take an average of 3.5 years longer to reach senior management than men.

This isn’t just frustrating—it’s financially consequential. Women lose approximately $430,480 over a 40-year career due to slower promotion rates and lower lifetime earnings. The gender pay gap and promotion gap compound over time, creating a widening financial chasm between equally qualified men and women.

Strategic Navigation: Playing the Game While Building Your Exit

Understanding that workplaces aren’t merit-based doesn’t mean you’re powerless. It means you approach your career strategically rather than naively. Here’s how to navigate non-merit-based environments while protecting your options.

Document Everything

Keep detailed records of your accomplishments, contributions, and any instances of favoritism. Include dates, specific projects, measurable results, and witnesses when applicable. This documentation serves multiple purposes: it supports your case in performance reviews, provides evidence if you need to escalate concerns to HR, and creates a clear record of your value if you decide to leave.

Track patterns: who gets promoted, who gets high-profile projects, who receives mentorship. If you realize that women or people of color are consistently passed over, documented evidence makes the pattern undeniable.

Build Visibility Strategically

Since merit alone doesn’t drive promotions, visibility and relationships matter enormously. This isn’t about abandoning excellence—it’s about ensuring your excellence is seen. Share wins in team meetings, send update emails to stakeholders, and volunteer for presentations that put you in front of leadership.

But do this strategically, not desperately. You’re not trying to win over every manager or executive. You’re building a professional brand that travels beyond your current role. Sponsorship is one of the biggest drivers of advancement—employees with sponsors are twice as likely to get promoted. Cultivate relationships with senior leaders who can advocate for you, but don’t limit yourself to your current organization.

Decode the Informal Power Structure

Every organization has a formal hierarchy (the org chart) and an informal power structure (who actually makes decisions, whose opinions matter, which relationships drive outcomes). One respondent shared: “I was looked over for a promotion that I deserved because I did not go drink with the male supervisors.”

Informal socializing—after-hours drinks, golf outings, private networking circles—often reinforces exclusionary career advantages. You can’t change this dynamic, but you can see it clearly. Understand where real decisions are made. If you’re systematically excluded from informal power networks, that’s information about whether this environment will ever truly reward you.

Stay Professional, Stay Detached

When you recognize favoritism and bias, it’s infuriating. But staying calm and professional increases the chances that others will listen to your concerns. Document, escalate if appropriate, but don’t let the injustice consume you emotionally.

Professional detachment is a skill. You do excellent work because that’s your standard, not because you believe excellent work alone will get you promoted. You build relationships because professional networks are valuable, not because you think being liked guarantees advancement. This mental shift protects your energy and self-worth.

Consider the Long Game

Is staying in this environment advancing your long-term career goals, or are you investing time and energy in a system that won’t reward you? Only half of companies remain committed to women’s career advancement, and some have actively walked back their efforts—two in 10 companies have stopped or scaled back bias training and diversity investments.

Sometimes the strategic play is to extract value from your current position (salary, skill development, specific projects) while quietly building your exit strategy. You’re not quitting in frustration; you’re making a calculated decision about where to invest your talent.

Building Your Exit Strategy: Making Leaving a Real Option

The most powerful position you can be in is one where leaving is always an option. When you have a strategic exit plan, you negotiate from strength. You advocate for yourself without fear. You don’t tolerate toxic environments because you need the paycheck. Here’s how to build that freedom.

Step 1: Financial Foundation (6-9 Months of Expenses)

Your exit strategy starts with money. Review your current financial position, including monthly expenses and emergency savings. Identify essential versus discretionary expenses to create a financial contingency plan.

Career transition experts recommend having nine months of buffer at minimum—six at the absolute least. This runway gives you space to find the right opportunity rather than accepting the first offer out of desperation.

Start building your exit fund now, even while you’re employed. Automate transfers to a separate “career transition” savings account. Money that gives you the option to walk away from toxic situations with dignity.

Step 2: Assess Your Benefits and Understand Your Runway

Before you leave any job, understand your retirement planning options. Can you roll over your 401(k) into an IRA? What happens to unvested stock options? How much unused vacation will you be paid out?

Look into health insurance options. COBRA allows you to continue your employer-sponsored health coverage, but it’s expensive. Research marketplace plans and their costs. Factor health insurance premiums into your monthly expense calculations.

Step 3: Reduce Financial Obligations

Strategic downsizing makes your savings last longer. Can you reduce discretionary spending now to accelerate your exit fund? Are there subscriptions, memberships, or expenses you can eliminate?

This isn’t deprivation—it’s strategic resource allocation. Every dollar not spent is a dollar extending your runway to find better opportunities. Pay down high-interest debt before leaving. Credit card balances become significantly more stressful without regular income.

Step 4: Build Alternative Income Streams

Consider freelancing, consulting, or part-time work in your field. Even modest additional income extends your runway considerably. Platforms like Upwork, Fiverr, and LinkedIn allow you to test consulting or freelance work while employed, building both income and a potential client base.

This serves dual purposes: additional income accelerates your exit fund, and alternative revenue streams make leaving less financially risky. If you can replace even 25% of your salary through freelance work, your nine-month runway becomes a 12-month runway.

Step 5: Invest in Transferable Skills and Network Building

Update your resume, strengthen your professional network, and identify any skills gaps. Take courses, earn certifications, or attend industry events—all while employed and earning a paycheck.

Connect with people in your network—mentors, former coworkers, trusted friends—who might provide insights or point you toward new career paths. Attending industry events and engaging with professional organizations expands your circle beyond your current employer.

Make your LinkedIn profile shine. Engage thoughtfully in professional communities. You’re not desperately job hunting—you’re strategically building visibility in your field. These connections often lead to opportunities before you even formally start looking.

Step 6: Plan Your Timeline

Once you’ve done these steps, your exit strategy comes down to timing. What makes sense financially? When will you have the skills, knowledge, and network to step out with confidence? Is there a sabbatical available? A redundancy package on offer? Extended leave you can negotiate?

Map out a timeline for each step, setting realistic expectations along the way. Having a structured plan provides a sense of control and reduces anxiety during the transition process.

Step 7: Leave Professionally

When you’re ready to exit, do it with grace. Give appropriate notice (typically two weeks minimum), write a formal resignation letter expressing gratitude, and offer to assist with the transition if feasible.

This isn’t about being submissive to an organization that didn’t value you fairly. It’s about protecting your professional reputation and maintaining relationships that might be valuable in the future. Stay connected via LinkedIn and industry groups. People remember how you left.

When Staying Is Strategic, When Leaving Is Essential

Not every non-merit-based workplace requires immediate exit. Sometimes the strategic play is staying while you build your exit plan, extract valuable experience, or wait for specific financial milestones (vesting schedules, bonuses, project completions).

But some situations demand prioritizing your exit:

Chronic negative impact on your health: If work stress is creating serious mental or physical health issues, no salary or resume line is worth it. Six in 10 senior-level women report frequent burnout—this is unsustainable.

Clear patterns of discrimination: If you’ve documented systematic bias, escalated appropriately, and seen no change, you’re investing your talent in an organization that won’t value it. The opportunity cost of staying is enormous.

Stalled growth: If you’ve been consistently passed over despite strong performance, and you don’t see a realistic path forward, you’re not “giving up too easily”—you’re making a strategic assessment that your growth lies elsewhere.

Values misalignment: If the organization’s actions conflict fundamentally with your values, and you find yourself compromising your integrity to succeed, no promotion is worth that cost.

The Freedom of Having Options

Here’s what changes when you have a fully built exit strategy: everything.

You negotiate salary with confidence because you know your financial runway. You advocate for yourself in performance reviews without fear of retaliation because you’re not desperate to keep this specific job. You set boundaries around workload and hours because you’re clear that burning out doesn’t serve your long-term strategy. You speak up about bias and favoritism because your self-worth isn’t tied to this organization’s validation.

Having an exit strategy doesn’t mean you’re constantly looking to leave. It means you’re operating from a position of choice rather than necessity. Financial stability is more empowering than a dramatic exit. Preparing for your departure doesn’t mean you’re weak—it means you’re wise.

You don’t have to love your job to use it strategically. Extract the value: salary that funds your exit plan, skills that transfer to your next role, projects that strengthen your resume, relationships that expand your network. Keep earning while you prep your finances. It’s not selling out—it’s buying yourself the security to land on your feet when your next chapter begins.

A Call for Honesty in Career Advice

The persistent myth of meritocracy does real harm to women’s careers. When we tell women that hard work and excellence automatically translate to advancement, we set them up for disappointment and self-blame when the system doesn’t reward them fairly. Women internalize failure when the system fails them.

“Just work harder.” “Be more confident.” “Lean in.” These platitudes place the burden of systemic bias on individual women while the structures of favoritism and gender bias remain unchallenged. It’s not that these behaviors are useless—confidence and excellence matter. But they’re not sufficient in non-merit-based systems, and pretending they are wastes women’s time and energy.

The honest conversation we need is this: many workplaces don’t operate on merit, gender bias shapes promotion decisions in profound ways, and sometimes the most strategic career move is building a solid exit plan rather than fighting to change an organization that doesn’t want to change.

This isn’t pessimism—it’s pragmatism. It’s choosing to invest your talent, energy, and time in environments or ventures that actually reward excellence rather than performing excellence for audiences who will never see your value clearly.

What This Means for Your Career

Understanding that most promotions aren’t merit-based changes your career approach fundamentally. You still do excellent work—but you do it strategically, with your eyes open, and always with options.

You build your exit fund while employed. You document your accomplishments obsessively. You cultivate relationships and visibility but stay professionally detached. You advocate for yourself while simultaneously preparing to advocate by leaving if necessary. You invest in transferable skills and your professional network. You assess whether your current environment will realistically reward you or whether you’re better served building your next chapter elsewhere.

Most importantly, you refuse to internalize a system’s failure to recognize your value. When 90% of employees witness favoritism and only 93 women are promoted for every 100 men, these aren’t individual failings—they’re systemic patterns. Your excellence is real. The system’s inability to properly value it says nothing about your worth and everything about the system’s limitations.

The game isn’t fair. You didn’t make the rules. But you can choose whether to keep playing in a rigged system or to build something better—either by finding organizations that genuinely value merit or by creating your own path where your work speaks for itself.

Having an exit strategy isn’t giving up. It’s the most empowering career decision you can make: building the freedom to choose where you invest your talent, knowing you always have options, and never staying somewhere that systematically undervalues you simply because you don’t know how to leave.

That’s not pessimism. That’s power.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I know if I’m experiencing workplace favoritism or if I’m just not performing well enough?

Document specific instances and look for patterns. Are equally or less qualified colleagues consistently receiving opportunities you don’t? When you request high-profile projects or promotions, is the feedback vague (“not quite ready”) or specific and actionable? Are people with similar performance metrics being treated differently? If you’re receiving strong performance reviews but still being passed over, or if you notice systematic differences in how opportunities are distributed, that suggests favoritism rather than performance issues. Also, ask trusted colleagues if they’ve observed similar patterns—sometimes external perspective clarifies what you’re experiencing.

Should I confront my manager about favoritism I’ve observed?

Approach this strategically, not emotionally. First, ensure you have documentation of patterns, not just isolated incidents. Frame the conversation around your career development and desire for growth opportunities rather than accusations of favoritism. Use language like “I’ve noticed that certain projects consistently go to the same individuals, and I’d like to understand what criteria are used for those assignments so I can position myself for similar opportunities.” If this conversation goes nowhere, or if you face retaliation, that’s information about whether this environment will ever change—and a signal to accelerate your exit strategy.

How much money do I really need saved before I can safely quit my job?

Career transition experts recommend 6-9 months of essential expenses as a minimum buffer. Calculate your essential monthly costs (housing, food, insurance, utilities, debt payments) and multiply by six to nine. If you have dependents, chronic health conditions requiring expensive care, or live in a high cost-of-living area, lean toward nine months or more. This runway gives you space to find the right opportunity rather than accepting the first offer out of desperation. Remember to factor in health insurance costs if you’ll be on COBRA or marketplace plans—these can be significant monthly expenses.

Can I build my exit strategy while still employed without it being unethical?

Absolutely. Building professional relationships, updating your skills, maintaining a current resume, and having financial contingency plans are all professional best practices—not disloyalty. You owe your employer excellent work during the hours they pay you for; you don’t owe them your entire career or your financial security. In fact, the most strategic time to build your exit plan is while you’re employed and earning a steady income. The ethical line is simple: don’t use company time or resources for your exit planning, don’t recruit colleagues away, and don’t sabotage projects or share proprietary information. Beyond that, taking care of your career interests is both ethical and essential.

What if I need this job for health insurance for my family?

Health insurance is a legitimate constraint that affects your timeline, not your overall strategy. Research your options: how much would COBRA cost? What are marketplace plan premiums for your family? Does your partner’s employer offer family coverage? Some people negotiate part-time arrangements or consulting contracts that include benefits while they transition. Your exit strategy might take longer to build—perhaps 12-18 months instead of 6-9—to create a larger financial buffer that accounts for insurance costs. The constraint is real, but it doesn’t make you powerless; it just extends your timeline and requires more thorough planning.

Won’t leaving this job look bad on my resume, especially if I don’t have another position lined up?

The stigma around employment gaps has decreased significantly, particularly post-pandemic, and especially for women who often have caregiving responsibilities. How you frame the gap matters: “career transition period focused on strategic planning and skill development” is truthful and professional. If you used the time productively—freelancing, consulting, taking courses, doing volunteer work that builds professional skills—that demonstrates initiative, not aimlessness. Additionally, if the alternative is staying in a role where you’re systematically undervalued and becoming increasingly burned out, the resume impact of leaving is likely less damaging than the long-term career impact of stalling in a role that won’t advance you. Your mental health, professional growth, and long-term trajectory matter more than an uninterrupted employment history.

What’s the difference between strategic career planning and “quiet quitting”?

“Quiet quitting”—doing the minimum required—often comes from burnout, resentment, or disengagement. Strategic career planning while building an exit strategy means you continue doing excellent work because that’s your professional standard and resume builder, but you’re emotionally detached from the outcome and clear-eyed about your timeline. You’re not mentally checking out; you’re strategically extracting value (salary, skills, experience, relationships) from your current position while preparing your next move. The work quality remains high; your expectations of the organization, and your emotional investment in its validation, adjust to reality. This distinction matters because excellent work during your exit period protects your reputation and references.

The Meritocracy Myth: How Women Can Navigate Non-Merit-Based Workplaces