In an ideal world this could be something to deal with but no, i think this kind of things as to be decided by the company and transparent, limited ressources, limited support. But if there is space to value relationship with the boss over skills and work force, then there should be for other subjective indicators too in order not to damage relationships before the “chosen one” and other people as commited but whose personnality or origin don’t meet what the management expects from a “good executive” . I value transparency over fairness, this gives a lot of peace of mind to everyone and give people all the autonomy to analyse their professionnal situation and take life changing/or stabilizing decisions according so, with limited mental load. Individual considerations remove individual distractions (but it could also make it worse if encouraging too much, you don’t want all the crowned children around to develop a self culture either, HR is already hard enough with concrete survival matters)