The danger that indispensable means “unpromotable”
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Being seen as indispensable feels good – you feel needed, and valued, and knowledgeable. It can also seem like a great way to secure your future in turbulent times or recessions – after all, if you’re the source of all knowledge or the best at what you do it’s unlikely you’ll end up on the bad side of any redundancies.
However, being indispensable is a negative career tactic – it can actually damage your career. The danger is that you’ll become unpromotable as taking you out of the team would create too much of a problem for your manager. If this is the case, your manager certainly won’t seek out career opportunities for you – and they may even downplay your abilities, or explain that the other candidate should be preferred as you can’t be spared.
An example is one man who worked for a popular fast food chain who was identified as the “best team member” in the company. However, despite coming top in his management assessment centre, he was passed over for a number of promotions into management as he’d leave too big a skills gap in the kitchen where he worked.
The best thing you can do for your career is to train up one or more successors for your job. Make sure your manager doesn’t feel the need to hold onto you. If you make it simple to know what to do if you get a better job, organisations will focus more on how to promote you and use your talents, and less on what disasters might happen if they let you move on!
However, being indispensable is a negative career tactic – it can actually damage your career. The danger is that you’ll become unpromotable as taking you out of the team would create too much of a problem for your manager. If this is the case, your manager certainly won’t seek out career opportunities for you – and they may even downplay your abilities, or explain that the other candidate should be preferred as you can’t be spared.
An example is one man who worked for a popular fast food chain who was identified as the “best team member” in the company. However, despite coming top in his management assessment centre, he was passed over for a number of promotions into management as he’d leave too big a skills gap in the kitchen where he worked.
The best thing you can do for your career is to train up one or more successors for your job. Make sure your manager doesn’t feel the need to hold onto you. If you make it simple to know what to do if you get a better job, organisations will focus more on how to promote you and use your talents, and less on what disasters might happen if they let you move on!