Alone at the Top: Antecedents, Strategies, and Costs of Flying Solo

Abstract

People stand alone at work for different reasons: sometimes they choose to because incentives make standing apart strategically valuable; sometimes they cannot avoid it because their background sets them apart. Across nine preregistered studies (Chapters 1 and 2; N = 8,614), I find that people are twice as willing to be a solo—the only representative of their identity group—when promotions or bonuses are allocated competitively rather than randomly. At the individual level, the effect operates through perceived performance and evaluation advantages, and is partially suppressed by perceived threat. At the organizational level, the effect is amplified by up-or-out incentive structures. Chapter 3 shifts from strategic choice to structural solo status. Drawing on 477 leadership assessments and seven interviews with Fortune 500 executives with first-generation and/or low-income (FGLI) backgrounds, I find that FGLI executives had access to mentors at rates comparable to their peers but lacked sponsors—that is, senior leaders who advocated for their visibility and advancement. In response, these executives invested in individual capital to substitute for sponsor-mediated relational capital. While these strategies accompanied career advancement, they also carried costs, most notably a self-sufficiency trap in which self-reliance eventually constrained the relational capacities senior leadership demands—and rationed the resources recalibration required. Together, these findings reveal both sides of solo status—when and why people choose it, and what it costs those without a choice.