Reward what's earned, not who you like

Here's where holding power gets hardest. You have a good shift to hand out, a name to put forward for the promotion, a little slack to extend or withhold. And the easy move is to give it to the person you like — the one who laughs at your jokes, who's easy to be around, who reminds you of you. Meanwhile the steady, awkward, less charming worker who actually carries the load gets passed over, because favoritism almost never feels like favoritism from the inside. It just feels like preferring good people.

Cicero put the standard where your feelings can't reach it: "no one should be entirely neglected who shows any trace of virtue; but the more a man is endowed with these finer virtues — temperance, self-control, and that very justice... the more he deserves to be favoured" (De Officiis 1.46, Miller). Favoured by desert. Not by charm, not by who's in your circle. By what they've actually shown.

This is the keystone of fair power: separate the person you enjoy from the person who earned it, and reward the second. Anyone can be generous with their friends. Justice is being generous with the deserving — especially when they aren't your friends.