Law 11 of 48
Learn to Keep People Dependent on You.
Cultivate relationships and dynamics that make others reliant on your support, guidance, or resources. Position yourself as an indispensable figure in the lives or endeavors of those around you, ensuring that they rely on your assistance or favor to achieve their goals. By keeping people dependent on you, you can wield influence and control over their actions and decisions, advancing your own interests in the process.
Independent commentary on a principle popularised in The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene and Joost Elffers. Not affiliated with or endorsed by the authors or their publishers.
What it actually means
Being needed is not the same as being valued, and a deliberate bottleneck is the weakest security there is: the moment you are indispensable in one narrow place, you are also unpromotable. The more useful half of this is noticing when someone else keeps information scarce so everything must route through them.
Where you would have seen it
One person on your team is the only one who understands how the reporting works, and every request waits on his calendar. He is safe and stuck, and the team has quietly stopped asking him to do anything else.
Try it today
Write down one thing only you know how to do, then teach it to a colleague today or document it in ten lines.
Where this shows up
Law 11 tends to come up in these parts of life. Follow a path to read the other laws that belong with it:
Laws that go with it
If law 11 landed, these are the entries people usually read next — they cover overlapping ground: law 1, law 7, law 17.
Never Outshine the Master.
Competence is rarely the problem; displaying it in front of someone whose position rests on being the capable one is.
At WorkLeading PeopleLaw 7Get Others to Do the Work, but Always Take the Credit.
Read plainly this is theft, and it is worth understanding mainly because it will be done to you.
At WorkLeading PeopleLaw 17Keep Others in Suspended Terror.
Unpredictability is a control device.
Leading PeopleAt WorkFriends & Family