Welcome back to EA How To.
Today I’m going to dive right in
and give you 10 tips
for excelling as an Executive Assistant.
1. Keep Records
This isn’t about staying on top of your document
management tasks, although that is really important,
this is about keeping a record of your
executive’s preferences.
Maintain a knowledge base of preferred business lunch spots,
coffee shops for casual meetings, accommodation, airlines,
frequent flyer memberships, dinner options,
meeting times, caterers.
Maintaining this knowledge base complete with contact information
will save you lots of time and will ensure you’re always keeping
your executives preferences in mind when planning.
2. Be Tech Savvy
Whether it’s being able to fix a setting on your executives phone
or put out multiple technical fires before a major presentation
be on top of as much tech as possible
Murphy's Law states that anything that can go wrong,
will go wrong.
This is true and you’re unlikely to constantly
have an amazing IT professional on call at all times.
In most cases, you are the IT professional on standby.
3. Make Tomorrow’s ‘To Do List’, Before Leaving the Office.
This will keep you organised and allow you to sleep better
and relax during your downtime.
You’ll perform better and rest easier knowing you have
plan in place for the following day.
4. Practice Meditation and Remain Calm Under Pressure
Stick with me here. You may be rolling your eyes right now
but I cannot overstate the importance of self care
looking after your mental health and what a huge impact
taking 15 minutes to meditate will have on your attitude
productivity and demeanour for the rest of the day.
If you’re thinking you don’t have 15 minutes,
then you need to take a close look at your schedule
and if necessary, have a chat with your executive.
Skipping lunch and not having 15 minutes
to yourself is not a recipe for long term success.
5. Practice Tactful, Honest and Direct Communication
Effective communication is vital to your success and efficacy as an EA.
What is often underestimated is how important it is
to your happiness in your role.
Communicating your needs, being assertive and pushing at tmes
is necessary to avoid being overwhelmed and burning out.
I’m not talking about complaining. That’s never ok.
I’m talking about negotiating boundaries
and being empowered to speak up when
these boundaries are being pushed.
6. Build Relationships and Trust
Building relationships with colleagues across all departments
will enhance your enjoyment at work because you’ll feel
a camaraderie with your coworkers, a meaningful connection to others
and it will help you when you need assistance.
People are far more inclined to go out of their way
for someone who has taken the time
to assist them in the past and get to know them.
Also bear in mind that you are considered
the executive’s eyes and ears in the office.
Someone who is able to gauge the pulse of the team
and report to your executive accordingly.
Of course this doesn’t mean you’re playing office tattletale.
It means you are sensitive to what is happening
with your co workers and you’re in a position
to assist them by speaking to their boss if they feel they can’t.
In terms of building trust, time and discretion is everything.
Demonstrate your worth over time and your executive
will come to have more and more faith in you.
As you are privy to some very sensitive and confidential information,
absolute discretion is required and without this., there is no trust.
7. Lead by Example
Executive Assistants are often tasked with managing others in the office.
You are also required to interact with
high profile individuals and some difficult personalities.
It’s up to you to set the tone.
Handle yourself in a professional manner and lead by example.
This is everything from being consistent, punctual and accurate
to handling conflict with tact, not participating
in office gossip and meeting professional expectations.
Be the change you want to see and follow that golden rule…
Treat others how you would like to be treated.
8. Anticipate Needs
You handle the schedule, you have access to the calendar
and you’re in constant communication with the executive
so you should be able to anticipate that person’s needs
and have a number of backup plans.
Examples of this include taking timing and hotel transfers
into consideration when booking travel,
emailing presentations to yourself and your executive
as part of a tech backup plan, arranging catering for extremely busy days,
considering what materials will be needed at a conference,
it could be ensuring there is a full stock of business cards.
It’s not only noticing that a flight is delayed
but providing details of a lounge where your executive
can work or rest in the event of a delay.
Always be several steps ahead.
9. Find Your Tribe
Join a EA community. I'm a member of two communities in London
that have regular meetups, learning opportunities and networking events.
I'm also a member of 2 online EA communities.
These people get you.
They are solving the same kinds of problems
and it's great to have a network of people to reach out to,
exchange ideas with and share knowledge with.
10. Continue to Learn, Grow and Challenge Yourself
EAs are asked to take on a really wide variety of roles.
Some EAs manage large teams, take on project management roles,
handle company wide social media and even get involved in business strategy.
Figure out what your strengths are and
carve a niche for yourself within the business.
You need to be constantly learning, evolving and staying on top of industry trends.
So sign up for courses, take on passion projects and always be upskilling.
That’s it from me today. I would love, love, love it
if you would share your EA tips in the comments below.
I’ll be making more EA videos in the coming weeks
so please feel free to make any requests
and I will catch you again soon in the next video.
Bye.