How to Become the Executive Assistant You Have Always Wanted to Be
Have you always wanted to be an executive assistant but have never been sure if you were cut out for the role? Do you know at an instinctive level that you would be a great administrative assistant at the highest level but are not sure if you have the right set of skills yet? In many cases, just having the right basic mindset is a solid start.
You can get the skills relatively easily. There is a training course available that can guide you through exactly how to help a person who is at the top, to do even better. The skills can be taught, provided you have the right kind of work ethic and the mindset to be someone’s rock in a support role.
If you’re looking for the right program, we’ve already done our research for you; simply check out the Executive assistant certificate program to get started.
Contents
Finding More Hours in the Day
When you are an assistant of an ordinary caliber, you simply go into work and handle things for a certain number of hours a day. You help people find what they need, and you make sure that the i’s are dotted, and the t’s are crossed. This is a solid path to being okay and average.
To be a great assistant, you need to take things that much further. Time management can go so much farther than many people think it can. In fact, time management can help people multiply the amount of work that they can get done in their day.
Often, tasks can be simplified, as can entire processes, simply by possessing great time management skills that can be learned.
Wrangling People
One of the best visualizations of business came in the form of a commercial from many years ago. Essentially, a rancher was herding cats, which would be very difficult on its best day. This is perhaps the perfect metaphor for handling meetings.
In any meeting, you have to balance the information, time, and egos of a large number of people. This means being able to get a read on them, handle the flow of ideas, and keep things civil. It is somewhere between being a hockey referee, a traffic cop, and a diplomat in a demilitarized zone.
This skill that getting the right training can build within you so that you can handle running any kind of meeting.
How to Become an Executive Assistant – Keeping the Gate
Often, executives are extremely positive people. These are people who love to say yes, and they often do. The downside is, they may be tempted to say yes to the wrong things or may end up spending time non-productively with the wrong person. This is where you can become a powerful asset to an executive, by being the best possible gatekeeper.
There is a theoretical gate that exists outside of every executive’s office. This gate is good because it keeps out non-productive uses of time. Part of your training is to recognize the useful from the useless. The right training can help you identify between the two!
