Becoming an Organizational Pillar – Part 1: A Matter of Job Security

Job security has been generally defined as the probability that an individual will keep his or her job. It is often believed that a person who has a job with a high level of job security would have a small chance of becoming unemployed. There is also a school of thought that job security is the assurance an employee has about the continuity of gainful employment for his or her work life. In this case job security usually arises from the terms of the contract of employment, collective bargaining agreement, or labour legislation that prevents arbitrary termination, layoffs, and lockouts.  

I believe that job security is not just about finding ways to secure your current job position. But I believe job security is about making oneself very attractive for organizations to hire you, but difficult for them to fire you or let you resign. It’s all about transforming and positioning oneself into an organizational pillar. Many references have been made to organizational pillars in the past. Most references were to steps the organization may take towards sustainability and improvement. However, the terminology “organizational pillar” has never really been used before in reference to the individual or employee and their sustainability and improvement being aligned to that of the organization. Hence, I present you with a new concept for an organizational pillar. 

The acquisition of a secure employment situation, in the organization you work for, is a benefit that organizational pillars derive. Differently, those who merely seek job security, in the organization with which they are employed, only secure a specific and often static job position. 

So what’s the big difference in the outcomes? Employees who only seek job security run the risk of their job positions or functions becoming redundant one day. On the other hand, the employees who become organizational pillars create pivotal lifetime employment guarantees for themselves on at least two counts. Firstly, they work towards the organization’s survival and improvement just as much as their own. Secondly, they become so highly crossed-trained, innovative, skilled and independent that they are wanted by other organizations. So, one way or the other, organizational pillars never really become unemployed unless they choose not to work. So what is an organizational pillar? Let’s begin by first examining the two words separately. 

Organization: Basically, a person or group of people intentionally organized to accomplish an overall, common goal or set of goals. (Comes from the root word organism which is a living thing that has, or can develop, the ability to act or function independently. 

Pillar: A slender, freestanding, vertical support; a column; one who occupies a central or responsible position; a supporter or mainstay. 

Essentially, organizational pillars would be persons who hold central or critical positions of responsibility and become strongholds. They are the ones who give life to and maintain the lives of organizations. Such people would be perceived as irreplaceable in the eyes of the stakeholders. An organizational pillar can be likened to a pilot of a commercial airliner. If the pilot is not there to get the plane off the ground, navigate in the air and land the plane, the rest of the crew and the passengers go nowhere. These are the people you hear supervisors, managers, directors, shareholders, even their co-workers saying, “I don’t know what we would do without them.” 

So what does it take to become an organizational pillar? It would take vision, creativity, initiative, flexibility, talent, skills, innovativeness, some form of opportunity (whether given or created) along with the birth and maintenance of the perception. If the perception of being an organizational pillar is not established in the minds of those that matter most, all real efforts at becoming one may be in vein. 

In the definition of pillar the word “freestanding” is used. To be freestanding, from an organizational point of view, is to be independent: not conforming to what is generally accepted or perceived by the other employees in the organization, but in possession of new, innovative ideas and ways of functioning more effectively; ready to present and implement new alternatives that may benefit the organization with a willingness to take responsibility for the outcomes (knowing they may not always work as intended); the willingness to be held accountable for suggestions, ideas and actions (something the corporate world has been running from lately). 

A pillar, according to definition, is a vertical support: an organizational pillar should function and be perceived as more of a support to his or her superiors, as regards being a catalyst to achieving their vision, mission and goals, rather than to his or her peers as a team player (i.e. horizontal support). He or she should work towards becoming the team leader which is an aid to his or her immediate superior and not remain just a team member. Since vertical support is synonymous with the concept of a pillar, the organizational pillar’s greater focus, interest, efforts and support should be towards upward movement and association with those in senior positions of the organization. Such a person soon becomes envied and even disliked by his or her peers. Remember, leadership is a lonely position (or should I say an independent one?). 

Again, I go back to the word “freestanding” in relation to the idea of being detached: an organizational pillar should be someone who, not only develops him or her self into a pillar for the organization he or she is currently employed with, but also develops him or her self to be perceived as an organizational pillar by any organization. Employers and business owners looking on from the outside should be able to recognize an organizational pillar and be desirous of acquiring such a person. However, a real organizational pillar is not a “grasshopper”, but a dedicated and loyal person who maintains his or her attractiveness and finds means of increasing it. They are always checking their marketability against the market opportunities and observing the changes in economics, politics and technology, weighing the effects of such changes and anticipating how they can rescue the organization with which he or she works.  

Characteristically, an organizational pillar learns to position him or her self in an independent place of financial security (i.e. having more than one income and earning apart from the organization he or she works with) and move away from the dependant place of financial security (i.e. living solely on the salary the organization pays, which really is an insecure place). Eventually, an organizational pillar should be able to dictate his or her own value and compensation through the perceived value of his or her contributions. 

Look out for part two of this article where we’ll explore one of the nine steps necessary to develop into an organizational pillar and create real job security.   

by Kevin K. Herbert