Feeling Underutilized and Stuck? Reignite Purpose and Value in Your Admin Role
You clock in every morning, tackle your to-do list, and handle the daily demands of your administrative role. Yet at the end of the day, many in our industry feel like they’re capable of so much more.
According to a 2025 LinkedIn report, 58% of US workers feel their skills are underutilized on the job. Even more striking? Administrative and support professionals top this list, with a staggering 65% feeling underutilized.
This statistic reveals a widespread challenge in our profession: Talented administrative professionals who possess valuable skills but aren’t given opportunities to fully demonstrate their capabilities.
The solution isn’t changing jobs or industries. Instead, the key lies in transforming your current role through a strategic partnership with your executive. In becoming a true strategic partner, you can unlock your potential, increase job satisfaction, and become an indispensable asset to your organization.
The Cost of Feeling Underutilized
When administrative professionals feel underutilized, everyone loses. You experience decreased job satisfaction, reduced motivation, and stagnant career growth. Your executive misses out on your untapped potential, creative problem-solving abilities, and strategic thinking. The organization loses the full value of your skills and experience.
This underutilization often stems from outdated perceptions of administrative roles. Many executives still view administrative support through a traditional lens: simply scheduling meetings, answering phones, and managing paperwork. While these tasks remain important,
today’s assistants bring far more to the table, like project management skills, technical expertise, analytical thinking, and business acumen.
The challenge is to bridge this perception gap and demonstrate your full capabilities.
This requires intentional effort to develop a strategic partnership with your executive. Within the dynamics of that partnership, you become viewed as a trusted advisor rather than just a task executor.
How Strategic Partnership Helps Assistants Feel Valued
A strategic partnership is a collaborative relationship where both parties work together toward shared goals, leveraging each other’s strengths to achieve better outcomes.
In the context of an assistant-executive relationship, this happens when you move beyond order-taking and become a proactive contributor who anticipates needs, offers solutions, and drives results.
The rewards of strategic partnership are significant: increased job satisfaction, professional growth, and opportunities to make meaningful contributions to your organization’s success.
Job satisfaction increases dramatically when you feel your skills are fully utilized and your contributions are valued. A strategic partnership creates this environment by expanding your role, increasing your visibility, and providing opportunities for meaningful impact.
This transformation doesn’t happen overnight. It requires consistent effort and cultivation to demonstrate your value, build trust, and expand your sphere of influence gradually. But it’s worth it!
Start by Understanding Your Executive’s Priorities
Before building a strategic partnership, you need to understand your executive’s world.
Ask questions like:
- What keeps you awake at night?
- What are your top priorities?
- What challenges do you face that I could help address?
- What are your long-term goals and vision for the organization?
- How do you prefer to communicate and receive updates?
- What metrics or outcomes are most important to your success?
Take the time to observe and listen. Pay attention to recurring themes in their conversations, meetings they prioritize, and decisions they struggle with. Read industry publications they follow, understand their department’s goals, and familiarize yourself with company-wide initiatives.
This knowledge becomes the foundation to position yourself as a strategic partner. When you understand their challenges, you can proactively offer solutions. When you know their priorities, you can align your efforts to support them more effectively.
Align Your Skills with Company Goals
Strategic partners share common objectives. Take time to understand how your executive’s goals connect to broader organizational success, then find ways to contribute meaningfully to those outcomes.
For example, if your executive is focused on improving team productivity, you might research project management tools, propose workflow improvements, or volunteer to coordinate cross-functional initiatives. If they’re working on cost reduction, you could analyze spending patterns, identify inefficiencies, or suggest process improvements.
The key is to position your contributions as solutions to real business challenges. This framing helps your executive see you as a strategic asset, beyond administrative support.
These 8 Skills Take You From Underutilized to Indispensable
The journey from feeling underutilized to becoming indispensable requires intentional relationship building and skill development over time. It takes consistent effort, clear communication, and deep understanding of your leader’s needs, goals, and work style. This process can feel overwhelming at times, but the rewards are well worth it.
The good news is, with our guidance, you don’t have to take the slow route. This section will provide you with actionable strategies and insights to streamline the partnership-building process, helping you foster trust, alignment, and efficiency in less time.
By focusing on these Power Skills, you’ll be able to fast-track your evolution into an indispensable strategic partner.
1. Expand Your Communication Style
Effective communication forms the backbone of any strategic partnership. Move beyond status updates and task confirmations to engage in more substantive conversations about goals, challenges, and opportunities.
Schedule regular one-on-one meetings with your executive. The goal for these meetings is not just to review calendars, but to discuss priorities, share insights, and explore ways you can contribute more strategically. Come prepared with observations about workflow improvements, industry trends you’ve noticed, or solutions to challenges you’ve identified.
Practice active listening during these conversations. Ask clarifying questions, paraphrase important points, and demonstrate that you understand the bigger picture. This shows you’re thinking strategically about the business, not just tactically about tasks.
2. Take Initiative and Demonstrate Proactive Thinking
Strategic partners anticipate needs and take initiative. Start to identify areas where you can add value before being asked. This might mean researching solutions to problems you’ve observed, preparing briefing materials for important meetings, or identifying potential risks and proposing mitigation strategies.
The goal is to demonstrate forward-thinking to make your executive’s job easier and more effective.
Document your initiatives and their outcomes. When you proactively address a challenge or implement an improvement, make sure your executive understands the impact. This will build a track record of strategic contributions that support your partnership development.
3. Build Trust Through Consistency and Reliability
Earn trust and respect through consistent performance and reliable follow-through. Strategic partnerships require high levels of trust because executives need to feel confident delegating important responsibilities.
Meet every commitment you make, communicate proactively about potential delays, and consistently deliver high-quality work. Handle confidential information with discretion, represent your executive professionally in all interactions, and demonstrate sound judgment in your decision-making.
As trust builds, your executive will naturally begin involving you in more strategic discussions and responsibilities. This creates a positive cycle where increased trust leads to expanded opportunities, which in turn builds more trust. This is one cycle you want to be caught in!
4. Develop Business Acumen
Strategic partners hone their business acumen to understand the business beyond their immediate responsibilities. Invest the time to learn about your company’s industry, competitive landscape, and market trends.
Understand how different departments contribute to organizational success and how decisions in one area affect others. This broader perspective allows you to contribute more meaningfully to strategic discussions and identify opportunities others might miss.
It also demonstrates your commitment to professional growth and your value as a thinking partner.
5. Become a Problem Solver
Instead of simply flagging problems, become known as someone who brings solutions. When you identify a challenge, research potential approaches, consider the pros and cons of different options, and present recommendations along with the problem.
This problem-solving approach positions you as a strategic thinker rather than simply an implementer. It demonstrates your ability to handle complex challenges independently and contribute real value to decision-making processes.
6. Manage Projects and Lead Initiatives
Volunteer for projects that align with your executive’s priorities. This might include organizing company events, coordinating cross-departmental initiatives, or managing vendor relationships.
Project leadership provides visibility across the organization, demonstrates your capabilities to a broader audience, and builds valuable skills that support strategic partnership development.
It also shows your executive that you can handle significant responsibilities independently.
7. Stay Current with Technology and Trends
Administrative professionals who embrace technology and other hard skills, and stay current with industry trends position themselves as valuable strategic resources. Learn new software tools, understand emerging technologies that might benefit your organization, and stay informed about best practices in your field.
Share relevant insights with your executive. If you discover a tool that could improve efficiency, research its potential impact and present a business case for its adoption.
This proactive approach to innovation demonstrates strategic thinking and adds measurable value.
8. Measure and Communicate Your Impact
Keep track of your contributions and their outcomes. When you implement a process improvement, calculate time savings. When you research a solution, document how it addresses business needs. When you manage a project, highlight successful outcomes and lessons learned.
Regularly share these impact stories with your executive, not to boast, but to ensure they understand the value you’re delivering.
This documentation also supports performance reviews and career advancement discussions.
Reignite Your Purpose. Reclaim Your Value.
If you’ve ever felt stuck or underutilized in your role, it’s time to activate your full potential.
The Significant Power Skills Series was built for administrative professionals like you: those ready to lead, influence, and become strategic assets in their organization.
With sessions on Communication, Interpersonal Intelligence, Adaptability, Energy Management, Business Acumen, Collaboration, and Critical Creative Thinking, you’ll discover how to communicate with impact, solve problems creatively, and lead with confidence.
Action Plan: Build a Strategic Partnership with your Executive
Building a strategic partnership requires constant effort and consistent execution. To maximize
the potential of these relationships, it’s important to create a clear and actionable plan that outlines your goals, responsibilities, and steps for collaboration.
A well-defined action plan helps you stay focused on mutual objectives and ensures accountability and progress along the way.
Below is a sample action plan to guide you in developing and nurturing a strong strategic partnership. Use it as a framework and tailor it to meet the unique needs and goals of your partnership.
Sample Action Plan
Step 1: Assess Current Relationship
Identify specific areas where your partnership can be improved or expanded. Reflect on your current contributions and how they align with organizational goals.
Step 2: Schedule a Conversation
Set up a meeting with your executive to discuss expanding your role. Prepare specific examples of how you could contribute more strategically. Present a plan for developing any necessary skills to support your growth.
Step 3: Define Career Goals
Clearly articulate your career objectives. Highlight how your goals align with the organization’s needs and long-term vision.
Step 4: Set Measurable Goals
Identify actionable steps, such as:
- Taking on a new project.
- Leading a process improvement initiative.
- Developing expertise in a specific area.
Ensure each goal is clear, measurable, and time-bound.
Step 5: Conduct Regular Reviews
Schedule periodic check-ins with your executive to review progress. Use these sessions to showcase your growth and commitment to the partnership.
Adjust goals as needed based on feedback and evolving organizational needs.
Remember that strategic partnership development is a gradual process. Focus on building trust through consistent performance, expanding your skills with continuous learning, and demonstrating value through proactive contribution.
Transforming Your Career Through Strategic Partnership
The statistics don’t lie: Too many administrative professionals are feeling underutilized and undervalued. That has to change.
You have the power to alter this narrative for yourself.
By developing a strategic partnership with your executive, you can transform your role from task-oriented support to strategic contribution. This transformation requires effort, patience, and persistence. You’ll need to develop new skills, expand your business knowledge, and consistently demonstrate your value.
However, the rewards are substantial: increased job satisfaction, professional growth, and the opportunity to make meaningful contributions to organizational success.
Your skills and capabilities are valuable assets that deserve to be fully embraced and utilized.
Don’t settle for feeling stuck or underused.
Take the initiative to build a strategic partnership that unlocks your potential and elevates your career.
The time to start is now! Your future self will thank you for taking this important step toward professional fulfillment and success.