---
title: "Making yourself indispensable"
description: "The routes Greene gives to a relationship of dependence."
canonical: https://tomsharman.com/bookshelf/48-laws-of-power/making-yourself-indispensable/
updated: 2026-11-03
---

# Making yourself indispensable

> The routes Greene gives to a relationship of dependence.

Robert Greene's framework, from 48 Laws of Power, pp. 136 to 145.

Framework 6 of 27 from [48 Laws of Power](https://tomsharman.com/bookshelf/48-laws-of-power/index.md) by Robert Greene. Category: Hiring and teams.

## The steps

1. **Possess an irreplaceable skill.** Develop a talent or creative skill so distinctive that your master can find another servant but never another you.
2. **Fake it if you must.** If you are not actually indispensable, give the appearance of specialised knowledge.
3. **Entrench yourself widely.** Get involved in so many departments that removing you unravels interdependencies.
4. **Hold secrets.** Seal your fate with theirs by knowing what they would not want broadcast.
5. **Accept fear over love.** Let them depend on you out of fear of the consequences of losing you, since you can control that.

## Where it comes from

From chapter: LAW 11, pp. 136–145

Make yourself needed so your master cannot do without you. The condottieri who won battles were killed because they were replaceable, whereas Bismarck allied himself with weak kings and made them depend on him until he set state policy. Louis XI spared his astrologer, and Pope Julius II begged Michelangelo to stay, because each was irreplaceable. Dependence can be intensive, resting on one irreplaceable skill, or extensive, spread across many departments as Kissinger's was, and secret intelligence is a third route. Dependence breeds fear rather than love, which Greene says is easier to control. The reversal is that monopoly isolates you and stirs up enemies.

## The animation

24 seconds, 4:5, no sound.

- MP4: https://tomsharman-downloads-006143767029.s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com/downloads/bookshelf/48-laws-of-power/making-yourself-indispensable.mp4
- MP4, dark: https://tomsharman-downloads-006143767029.s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com/downloads/bookshelf/48-laws-of-power/making-yourself-indispensable-dark.mp4
- Still: https://tomsharman-downloads-006143767029.s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com/downloads/bookshelf/48-laws-of-power/making-yourself-indispensable.png
- Still, dark: https://tomsharman-downloads-006143767029.s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com/downloads/bookshelf/48-laws-of-power/making-yourself-indispensable-dark.png