> Indispensable employees are a sign of organizational failure. They indicate a weak point in the organization
> All this is to say that if you ever find yourself thinking, "this place would fall apart without me," you have a big problem.
Just to be clear. _You_ don't have the problem, the organization does. If you're the head of software development at Netflix, you can easily find another job tomorrow if you leave. But if you're indispensable and Netflix falls over after you leave, then you don't have a problem, Netflix does.
No, I'll stand by my point. If you're indispensable, you're partly responsible for an organizational failure. If management recognize the problem and have time and space to address it, they may work with you to fix it. But in a time of crisis, when headcount needs adjusting, smart management will see you as a liability and act accordingly. Bureaucracies have a lot of momentum and are more resilient to the loss of an individual than they may appear. Obviously this is big-company thinking, and it applies in proportion to how bureaucratic your organization is.
Being indispensable can also severely impact any chance you have at progression within an organisation.
If they know they can't promote you or everything will fall over you're always going to get looked over compared to someone with a similar skill set but no 'baggage'.
> All this is to say that if you ever find yourself thinking, "this place would fall apart without me," you have a big problem.
Just to be clear. _You_ don't have the problem, the organization does. If you're the head of software development at Netflix, you can easily find another job tomorrow if you leave. But if you're indispensable and Netflix falls over after you leave, then you don't have a problem, Netflix does.