Chasing Irrelevance — A Whole-Life Template for Leadership and Career Growth
We all like to feel important. Needed. Indispensable. These are adjectives we attribute to successful, effective people. The Most Valuable Player of a football or baseball team is the one the team could least afford to do without. They’re aren’t just good, they’re irreplaceable.
It’s understandable that leaders would want to be described this way. Critical. Essential. These words feel good. They feel like validation. But good leaders shouldn’t strive to be irreplaceable. While feeling needed may temporarily boost one’s ego, it’s a decidedly bad position for a leader. Your “need to feel needed” can deprive your people of new challenges and opportunities, while preventing you from moving on and upward when the chance presents itself.
In contrast, good leaders embrace irrelevance. They seek it out. And when the moment arrives when they are no longer needed, no longer indispensable or irreplaceable, they move on. To the next big thing. To the next challenge. They make room for the next generation of leaders.
This kind of selfless leadership, the courage to work oneself out of a job, requires a certain mindset. Good leaders must learn or develop true self confidence, self-assuredness that survives in the absence of external validation. They need to become self-driven, working in service of goals or results that might not always hand them medals or place them on pedestals.
Developing Confidence Through Challenge — A Framework for Life
There’s no article or blog post that can give you the secret to long-term career growth,self confidence, or satisfaction. No magical formula, diet, or workout routine. True career self actualization is earned over a lifetime, through accomplishment, discovery, advancement, and challenge. It’s a natural byproduct of a professional life well lived. There is no one-size-fits-all approach.
I’m going to give you one anyway. Here it is:
- Seek new challenges
- Train your replacement
- Embrace irrelevance
- Move on, rinse, repeat
I’ll even rephrase this in the context of an org chart: Find the person one rank under you. Teach them to do your job, and give them the space to do it. Find the person to whom you report. Learn their job, and do it for them. Advance and repeat. If there is nobody one rank under you, you’ll just need to do two jobs. You can do it. Believe me.
Make sense yet? No? Okay, I’ll break it down:
Step One — Seek New Challenges
There’s no easy, direct path for developing self confidence, but a good way to get there is to constantly look for challenges. Seek out new hills to climb or obstacles to overcome behind every turn, under every rock, and in every facet of your professional career. A great way to feel stronger in the gym is to add more weight to the bar. A great way to feel more confident in your career is to try new things. Harder things. Different things.
New challenges can take different forms. They don’t always have to be harder. Sometimes they just need to be different. A new challenge might be a bigger workload of what you’re currently doing. Two teams instead of one. An account instead of a project. Maybe it’s a new client, a new industry, or a new subject matter area. Whatever it is, look for something that forces you to learn something you didn’t know. Something that helps you know yourself better than you did before.
Maybe you want to step up the ladder in your current company. That’s great! Find your boss. Ask for it. Learn their job. Offer to do it for them. Maybe they’ll teach you, maybe they won’t. But chances are there’s a way to learn and absorb the intricacies of the next position up on your org chart. Get after it.
Step Two — Train your Replacement
For most of us, there’s a catch. Chances are you already have a day job. Responsibilities. You’d assume a new position if you could, but maybe you can’t just yet. This is where mentorship comes into play. Talk to the people who report to you. Teach them your job. Give them your responsibilities. Give them the room and time to train, practice, fail, and get better. Mentorship isn’t always easy, but it’s a very important skill for effective leaders. Invest your time, energy, and patience in becoming a more effective teacher. It’s more rewarding than you think.
So mission accomplished! You’ve trained your replacement. That’s great! Many of us won’t have the opportunity to move into the next role until someone can move into ours. But how you handle what comes next is critical. Here is where many otherwise good leaders misstep and falter.
Step Three — Embrace Irrelevance
Diving into a bigger pond can be hard. Maybe you’re used to being indispensable. One difficult outcome from successfully training your replacement is that there will inevitably be times when you feel irrelevant. No longer needed. You might show up for a meeting you used to run only to learn they don’t really care if you attend. The team you led a year ago might no longer come to you for help. Maybe others will have stepped up and become the new leaders. This can be hard to take. Obsolescence hurts.
The truth is that succumbing to insecurity makes for ineffective leadership. Ineffective leaders need to be feted. Recognized. Needed. Faced with the dilemma of irrelevance, ineffective leaders tend to flip the table. They reassert control. They might even lash out at whatever new leadership has dared to take their place. Insecurity is a bad influence.
Good leaders, on the other hand, are self-assured. They recognize their newly-earned irrelevance as success. Maybe the team no longer needs them because mentorship and training worked. Maybe their irrelevance is a positive byproduct of good leadership. Whatever the reason, good leaders don’t stick around when they aren’t needed. Time for the next step.
Step Four — Move On, Rinse, Repeat
In this moment, good leaders have the courage to leave. Move on. Rise to the next challenge. After a leader has achieved irrelevance, their ongoing presence can only discourage the next generation from stepping forward. This isn’t loss. It’s success. And for the newly superfluous, it’s an opportunity.
In short, good leaders accept and celebrate their irrelevance. Ineffective leaders reject it. Good leaders build self-sufficient teams. Ineffective leaders hang on to power. Good leaders recognize that irrelevance is a by-product of effective teams and successful leadership. Ineffective leaders measure success by their individual sense of importance. Good leaders are selfless. Ineffective leaders are needy.
And when the next opportunity or challenge presents itself, good leaders seize it.
Pursue your own irrelevance. When you’ve achieved it, celebrate. Take pride. Move to the next challenge. Rinse/repeat.
The day might come when you have nowhere else to go in your organization. No hill to climb. When this happens, leave. Move on. Get out. Vacate. It might be scary, but that fear is your next challenge. Find it. Face it.
The world needs good leaders. Keep going!
