Good bosses do pick ‘favorite’ employees

Airbnb co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky isn’t afraid to pick favorites.

Bosses need to do that to be effective leaders, Chesky told Fortune last month. Those people can be top performers who set the quality of work standards on their teams, or quickly find and solve problems, he said.

“The favorites have to be [picked] on fair criteria … but if you can’t say this is a high performer and this is what excellence looks like, then you’re going to be in big, big trouble,” said Chesky. “That is just not good leadership.”

As the leader of Airbnb — a company worth $85 billion, as of Monday morning — Chesky invites 80 to 100 of his employees across job levels to biannual meetings where business-wide decisions are made, he said. Sometimes, the same people get invited repeatedly. But while other leaders would worry about making “unfair and not systematic” selections, Chesky said, identifying who can provide valuable insight isn’t political.

Still, bosses who try to follow Chesky’s strategy…