Leave Well | Live Better: Wanting to be Needed
The art of leaving your job well #7
Why do so many leaders believe in their own indispensability? While I’m not a psychologist, I suspect it’s rooted in insecurity.
Just beneath the smooth and confident exterior, could it be that we are terrified of not being needed? And we all want to be needed as much as we need to be wanted.
Being needed is the ‘good life’. Being needed means no need to Leave Well | Live Better.
But at quiet moments, we worry that people will discover that we’re not that good at what we do, and, perhaps, don’t actually deserve our privileged positions at all.
This is known as ‘impostor syndrome’, a common type of insecurity in which people wrongly assume they are frauds and that others will soon find out, with all the attendant consequences...
This form of insecurity encourages a subconscious strategy - projecting our imaginary indispensability on to the organisations we serve.
I can’t bear the thought that I might not be needed, so I invent an ‘indispensability myth’ about myself.
I needn’t tackle – or even admit – my own insecurities: I will always be in demand, forever needed by my organisation. Without me, it will simply implode, BECAUSE I AM INDISPENSABLE.
Not being needed is the worst possible fate, one to be avoided at all costs. So we deceive ourselves and assume that others believe the lie too.
But in reality, the sensible people in our organisations never believed in our indispensability and would be bemused and a little disappointed to discover that we did.
Facing our insecurities is a prerequisite to Leave Well | Live Better.
How strongly do you experience the want to be needed and how does it impact on your thinking?
Please tell me in the comments.
Next up: Leave Well | Live Better: Are you Retiring?
Please tell your friends about the growing Leave Well | Live Better community by forwarding this newsletter.
As a wise rabbi once said to me, half the people in leadership roles suffer from impostor syndrome, and the other half ought to...
A year before I stepped down I was explaining my rationale to a friend - who still likes to remind me of what I said. A prime reason to leave was that I didn't want to die. Physically and in real life, that was a fear - to be the leader who heroically keeps on giving, and then drops dead shortly after retiring (which anecdotally seems distressingly common among headteachers!).
So I think the connection to mortality is fascinating, and the 'need to be needed' a really powerful and potentially dangerous stimulant. I don't think I've kicked the addiction since leaving, but at least I am seeing that there are lots of platforms and contexts in which one is or can feel needed, and fixing it all in a role - however satisfying - is risky.
I also reflect on the need to listen to our bodies, which may be nudging us to do things that are good for our wider wellbeing as well as for our physical health...