Four traits make you irreplaceable at work: adaptability, proactivity like lining up interviews yourself, humility about promotions, and teaching others your skills. The speaker walks through workplace examples of each.
With the number of layoffs occurring, a lot of professionals are wondering, how can I become more irreplaceable at work? First, super important disclaimer. Even the best employees that successfully manage up can still be impacted by layoffs. Strong performers are laid off all the time. However, developing these traits bring many advantages regardless of your current career status. Being adaptable to change, being proactive, letting ego and selfishness go, and scaling your strengths first, we'll cover being adaptable to change. Senior leaders at, especially in this environment, are constantly dealing with many moving parts. What's true today might not be true tomorrow. Employees that roll with the changes are much easier to work with. The more time I can spend executing a new direction compared to having to convince you of the new direction, the more effective we will be. Don't be the employee that fights against every organizational change. Sometimes, even if you disagree, you still need to commit and then go execute. Second, be proactive. Few things bring a leader more relief than learning that a member of their team took ownership of a problem or opportunity and is already working on a solution. Just recently I let a member of my team know we needed to hire for their team before we had even talked formally about it. They lined up six interviews with strong performers. They took action before I even had a chance to worry about it, making my job much easier. As you're taking that burden off of your leaders, it's going to make you look more favorable to them. Third, letting ego and selfishness go. You should always be an advocate for yourself. Sometimes you really need to read the room and understand the situation your company is in. With companies cutting back on growth and spending, pushing your leaders for accelerated promotion may not always be the right play. It's a lot faster to earn promotions when companies are growing headcounts at 2021 rates. As the organization needed to fill roles, it's going to be slower. Now understand that promotions in this environment don't just require your performance, they also require company justification. As an example, you can't be promoted to a sales leadership role if your company isn't hiring enough AES to fill your team. Be patient, be humble and perform. Play the long game and it will work out. And finally scale your strengths. Becoming the go to resource for something important on your team makes you extremely painful to lose. Are you the the best at prospecting or discovery or territory planning? Maybe some of the sales enablement tools? Start teaching others your process. Not only does it take the burden off of your leader, it also shows you add value beyond your core job. Adding value beyond your core job is a great way to become more irreplaceable. Work on improving in these four core areas and your career will progress. For more content like this, please subscribe to sales introverts on YouTube. You can also find my best frameworks for AES and leaders@salesintroverts.com.
