ABOUT THIS VIDEO
WEEK 19: Earning Your Rightful Place On The Executive Team
When you earn your place or maintain your place on the executive team, you are: part of the inner circle, recognized as a leader, taken more seriously, privy to important information, and more! – Join Joan for Week #19 of this video series!
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to week nineteen, Your Rightful Place on the Executive Team. Our topic today comes from the book, Underneath It All, Advanced Competencies for Administrative Professionals.
Fortunately, at a very young age, I was able to see my worth and see the quality I produced. To see the value I had in this profession, and to know that I deserved to be treated with respect. Because of that, I did achieve a lot of success in my administrative career.
To start, I have seven (7) tips that I’d like to share with you today, they are:
1. You have to take your career seriously in order for others to take you seriously. If your actions are not reflecting a passion about your profession, if you don’t show that you care about your career, what makes you think anyone else will? You have to outwardly show just how passionate you are about your profession in order for others to do the same.
2. Visualize yourself as part of the executive team. For years there has been a different level that has been portrayed by the executive staff and the administrative staff. It’s not quite there today, however, the two meshes together now more than they ever have over previous years. So you have to visualize your self as not just the administrative professional, but as part of the executive team because you are supporting the managers, and even possibly the leaders of that department!
3. Take on assignments that are outside of your territory. If you want to earn your spot on the executive team, you need to grow and show people that you have this capability.
4. Grow your current position.
5. Be trustworthy. One thing I’ve learned from many different executives over the years is that, once that admin betrays their trust, it’s very hard to get it back! You have to work hard to keep that relationship with your executive in order to become a part of the executive team. To explain, there are two kinds of trust:
- The first one is the kind of trust that the executive feels they can trust you with confidential information. That when given information; you won’t go and blab it to the world.
- The second kind is I have to trust that my assistant as my business partner is following thru on everything. Not letting things fall thru the cracks. That she is tracking action items, follow up items to great detail, and that’s another type of trust. If I can’t trust you to do these things for me, I will begin to take things back. I will not delegate and share things with you in the future.
6. Teach your executives how to partner with you. There is not a school (though I wish there was) that teaches executives how to build partnerships and synergistic relationships with their administrative and executive assistants.
7. You have to think like an executive. If you want to be in sync with the managers and the executives, you need to start to learn how they think. How do you do that? You listen to these executives, what words they use, how they approach problems, how they solve problems, how do they handle stress, how do they handle chaos in the work place, what do they read, what kind of things are they interested in? As you can tell, I’m very passionate about this! Because the greatest part about being an administrative assistant is that you’re taken seriously. That you’re admired by that management team for your contributions and they want to draw you in to their inner circle.
Activity for the week:
Think like an executive! Sit down and ask your executive what it’s like to be in their shoes, ask them how they see things from where they sit? Ask them, what are your challenges? What are shoes, ask them how they see things from where they sit? Ask them, what are your challenges? What are your opportunities? How do you view the administrative role from where you sit? That’s your assignment, short and sweet! Stay committed, have a great week!
Until Next Time…