Being indispensable means that you are universally acknowledged as someone who is highly valuable and absolutely necessary.
People tend to assume that indispensable roles reside at the top of the organization chart, but that’s not necessarily true. One thing for certain is that indispensable employees possess great power. They often exert more influence over an organization than members of the senior leadership team.
Indispensables include the salesperson who consistently stands atop the president’s club, the innovative scientist who inspires a research team to be manically focused, the division head who cuts through an organization’s red tape to get things done, the plant manager who keeps employees engaged while producing record output, the sales leader whose business acumen and charisma attracts top talent or the controller who thinks strategically and understands the why behind the numbers.
There’s a famous quote in George Orwell’s Animal Farm “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
As it turns out, this is a fundamental business principle. So consider: Who are these animals that are more equal than others and how can you become one of them?
Indispensables have discovered a secret formula that contains two important ingredients. They operate at the intersection of individual competence and optimal platform.
First, they understand their natural personality strengths and how to leverage them. They grasp how these personality strengths, which underlie their competencies, are tied to the big picture. They are often both individual stars and strong team players, which makes them incredibly valuable.
But without the second ingredient, the optimal platform, personality strengths will never be maximized to create that magical formula – the one that results in being indispensable. Your organization and role must enable your strengths to flourish.
Below are statements describing derailers to being indispensable. Do any of these apply to you?
- You still don’t truly know what you’re great at.
- You feel stuck. You’re surviving but not thriving.
- You’re in a tactical non-strategic role.
- You feel undervalued and easily replaced.
- You’re subordinate to an egoist who keeps you in the shadows.
- You don’t seem to fit in with your team or corporate culture.
The first step to getting on the right track is to be able to answer the following question with an enthusiastic YES!
Do I believe that I possess personality strengths that make me totally unique?
This may seem silly but you’d be surprised at how many highly successful people really don’t believe they have any unique or special talents to offer the world. They do, of course. But their own self-perception can limit their ability to grow and leverage this uniqueness into a career differentiator. This is known as the imposter syndrome.
This quote is a surprising example.
“I still believe that at any time the no talent police will come and arrest me.” Mike Meyers aka Austin Powers.
Women are especially susceptible to the imposter syndrome. We’ve coached many women executives who don’t believe they have any special talents despite making high six figure incomes. Many people will secretly admit they suffer from this affliction which, if not addressed, will limit their ability to fully flourish in their careers.
Every person has unique capabilities that when understood and placed on the right platform will result in being indispensable.
Your uniqueness forms the foundation of your power. We each have a distinctly individual psyche. If we mature what we call our highest self, we will have developed our personality strengths. Then the challenge becomes finding the right platform to maximize those unique personality strengths. Renewed confidence about who you are should clarify what organizational dynamics must come together to be the best fit for you.
Many talented people never become indispensable because they work at the wrong company or in the wrong job.
Don’t let this happen to you. Visualize your future. At the end of TLT Coaching as you set goals and create your action plan, see this as an opportunity to think through steps you can begin to take to make your goals a reality.
Through many years of studying human capital systems in organizations, we know that the people who have become indispensable in their business ecosystems have done two things well. They understood their inherent personality strengths and found a platform to exploit those strengths. But before any of this can occur, they must acknowledge deep within that they are gifted with a unique personality.
When you declare, emphatically, that this is true for you too, you will have taken a powerful first step toward being indispensable.