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When Being Indispensable Backfires

by Mita Mallick

A mentor once said to me, “The critical mistake you made is that you became indispensable.” “That’s why you can’t get off his team and move on to your next assignment.”

After more than four years in the same role, I found that my career had stalled even though I had gone above and beyond my job description. My boss frequently volunteered my time to other leaders to build their strategy decks. He asked me to call vendors to ask them to purchase annual gala tables for the nonprofit board he served on. He had me write his speeches for external events. He asked me to help manage his LinkedIn profile, and soon other leaders came to me with similar requests. Finally, he asked me to help the CEO ...

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