Leveraging Executive Assistants Well

This week, the Corporate Dojo team and I are excited to be launching our freshly minted The Influential EA of the Future program.

Among the most common things I work on to support CEOs and business owners is creating the capacity and mindset they need to focus on doing their own job. All too often, the leaders I work with, at all levels of an organization’s hierarchy, are operating one or two levels beneath where their focus needs to be.

It’s common for CEOs to be operating in the trenches of their executive roles and responsibilities. In turn, executives often behave as managers of teams across their portfolios. Managers end up doing the job of supervisors and supervisors behave like team members. This is a daily observation I make.

3 strategies most often relevant to shifting this reality:

1. Clearly define leadership roles and responsibilities.
2. Build leadership and management capability so that delegating authority and accountability are possible.
3. More effectively leverage Executive Assistants and administrative support to remove noise and bring order to the chaos in the leader’s world.

By EA, we also mean all the PAs, Office Managers, and other administration staff striving to support leaders in delivering on their objectives. These can feel like thankless jobs and at times extremely difficult positions, especially when leaders don’t know how to help themselves by allowing their EAs to do their jobs.

There are countless examples where lifting leaders and engaging highly skilled EAs has allowed the executives I work with to improve their own performance and impact.

For many years, we have been delivering leadership development programs. However, for too long, supporting the development of high-performing EAs and administration support teams has remained on the ‘really must get to that’ list of priorities. We’ve finally gotten there.

We’d love for you to check out the program, but at the very least, spend some time reflecting on how well-positioned your EA or support team is to make a significant contribution to your success, as well as that of other leaders in your business. Among the most important steps you can take to support the success of your EA include these:

1. Engage with your EA frequently about key priorities and the role they can play in driving outcomes.
2. Empower your EA to follow up on your behalf and influence accountability for agreed outcomes from members of your direct report team.
3. Work with your EA to develop an operating rhythm that keeps you focused on the right priorities at the right time.
4. Inspire your EA to have confidence and courage in making the level of contribution they can make.
5. Invest in your EA's professional development. In my experience, there is vast untapped potential among the EA community. Many are highly capable of becoming operational leaders and project managers if that’s what they want to do.

To sign up for our The Influential EA of the Future program, head to the 'Events' tab on our website.

Or follow this link: https://www.corporatedojo.com/the-influential-ea-of-the-future