Replaceability and Freedom

Your unique voice and point of view are irreplaceable, but your position is a different story. If you leave, someone will fill your slot, they might be more or less capable, and they won’t do what you did the way you did it, but some version of the job will get done.

Instead of seeing this as a negative thing: “I can be replaced at any time”, we can choose to see it as a positive thing: “If at any time this isn’t working for me, I have the freedom to seek out something that is.”

How many times have we seen people stay in toxic situations because of some misplaced sense of responsibility or ego? “My team needs me” or “This place is such a mess and I’m the glue that’s holding it together” or “I’m the only reason people come here.”

If you’ve been at your post for 1, 3, or 5 years and you truly are the only person holding everything together, that doesn’t speak very well for your workplace culture or your ability to impact the lives of the people around you. While there is some value to being a diamond in the rough, there’s much more value in being able to create more diamonds.

So if you don’t have enough influence to create the change you hope to make inside your current organization (I’ve been there), it might be time to cash in on that replaceability and find or create a space where your gifts can fully shine.

The people you’re worried about leaving in a tight spot might miss you, but they’ll be fine without you. Zoom out 5 or 10 years and this is easy to see. The harder part is being honest when asking yourself the following: Are you staying because you owe it to everyone around you, or are you simply using that as an excuse?