One reason so many assistants experience burnout is due to identifying too closely with the executive they support. Let me explain.

When an assistant has a great partnership with their executive there's an unusual (mostly unspoken) closeness and bond. It was certainly my experience in many of the senior roles I held in my career.

Here's how it happens:

Fun fact: only 5% of assistants globally seek feedback outside the annual performance review cycle. This is a huge missed opportunity to support growth, career progression and to understand where to focus for the highest impact. Here are some quick tips to get you comfortable with seeking feedback regularly.

Reading data and financials is a skill gap many assistants struggle with. Read on to hear:

why nailing this skill will support you to create impact in your work, be rewarded and recognised for your contribution.

and a practical way to get started

With burnout rife in the assistant community and on the rise, now is the time to re-define what high performance means today. Here are some practical tips on designing a career that will be sustainable, fulfilling and authentic.

Networking. Something few people enjoy but an art that once mastered, can pay dividends. Here’s some tips to help you feel more comfortable and confident networking and to help you understand how it can support you in your career.

Preparing for an AGM is one of the most stressful times in a corporate calendar. Keep reading for practical tips to create ease, ensure all details are covered and your stakeholders are well prepared to face investors and shareholders.

Here's something I hear from assistants repeatedly. Their executive works in a highly reactive state. Their calendar is full, their workload is high, the pressure is relentless. They jump from deadline to burning platform and have little space in between. They're a bit chaotic, but they're okay with it because they're meeting their obligations and getting there *just* in time has to be good enough.

They resist any structure the assistant tries to introduce to create ease and flow. Nothing has worked.

There’s a missing link that hasn’t yet been tried - a direct conversation about impact.

Throughout my career I often had conversations with assistants in my teams who were bored, unmotivated, unchallenged, over it, or chasing a pay increase. They were thinking about moving on.

When we got to the heart of what was going on, in many cases a change of company wasn't going to solve the issue.

It was clear to me that they’d almost be guaranteed to find themselves feeling the same way 12 months later because they were leaving for the wrong reasons.

They hadn’t explored all possibilities in the current workplace, weren’t clear on what they really wanted next or where they’re going or what would bring longer term satisfaction and fulfilment at work.

If a root cause hasn’t been addressed, feelings of demotivation, dissatisfaction and boredom will return as soon as a new role is mastered, usually around the 1 year mark, and when the gloss of a new environment wears off.

The reality about chasing a couple of extra thousand dollars increase is that it may make a difference right now, but it’s not going to support you longer term if your new opportunity isn’t going to offer the experience that will support your progression and growth and expand your earning potential.

Sometimes the right answer isn't to jump ship - yet.

Sometimes it makes more sense to create change where we are, a change that will set us up longer term.

SOME OF THE WAYS WE CAN WORK THOUGH WHETHER A CURRENT ORGANISATION CAN STILL SERVE IS BY:

The pressure of a to-do list that never shrinks is a very real stressor so many of us face in our work.

In my corporate career I'd frequently see leaders, middle management and assistants drowning in work, focused on the wrong things, doing long hours and on the fast track to burnout.

It’s a slippery slope to be in and getting out of the weeds and the reactivity state can feel impossible when the balls will not stop flying at you.

Competing demands, conflicting priorities, expectations that aren’t adequately managed, and days that are filled by being in meetings where the ‘doing’ can’t happen means the pressure can feel relentless.

This is a bad place to be, because when we're in that state, being able to focus on strategic work becomes nearly impossible.

This means we're not having the level of impact we otherwise could.

We can only be focused on the burning platforms and the issues that need immediate attention, not the work that sets us up, as well as our teams, for long term success.

So what to do if you find yourself in a state of overwhelm, behind in your work, and feeling that you can only scratch the surface?

Here is a simple formula to help you regain control and be able to view the horizon.

An Acknowledgement of Country is something many organisations in Australia are committed to doing before meetings and events begin as a mark of respect to the Traditional Custodians of the land their meeting/event is on. 

I’ve rarely seen one delivered in the corporate world in a way that moved me and honoured the sentiment or intention of an Acknowledgement.

Mostly they tend to feel like a tick-box exercise or an inconvenience, and often when delivered this way, more than a little uncomfortable for the audience.

Here are some tips to help you deliver a meaningful Acknowledgement of Country and why the sentiment and intention behind the delivery matters as well as the language.

Talent mapping and succession planning is one of THE most important activities an organisation can undertake to ensure the health of an organisation.

If you don’t have the right people doing the critical work, you don’t have an organisation that will thrive. Things unravel pretty quickly when there are gaps in talent and vacant roles.

That’s why I always found it astonishing that only very rarely are executive assistants included in the process.

Throughout my entire career I agitated for this and only once was I able to shift it to have my role, as an EA to a CEO, included in the process.

It’s an enormous missed opportunity to not include the assistant cohort that support leaders in succession planning and this is why:

Recognition on Admin Professional Day is nice. It feels good to be seen, appreciated and even publicly acknowledged. But what feels even better to an assistant is meaningful support and appreciation that goes beyond cards, cupcakes, or chocolates.

Here's why:

Many assistants experience feelings of being undervalued or "othered" in the workplace.

“Just an admin”.

You might not see it or hear it, but it is there and for many it’s felt deeply every day.

The bottom line is this:

Assistants directly contribute to, support and enable the success of others.

Their work, though perhaps sometimes the least visible in an organisation, supports its healthy foundations.

Making something appear effortless is testament to the skill it takes to do a job well.

It is dignified, important work that deserves respect and inclusion, not"othering'.

Ongoing learning and development is an important way to remain relevant in a changing business landscape, keep skills fresh and support career progression.

During the course of my career I studied degree specialisations and many courses and programs to help me amplify my most valuable skills and develop new skills that would support me to expand my value offering.

It wasn’t easy. I had to do all of it in my personal time which, given the heavy workloads I experienced in my career, I rarely had enough of.

I know what it’s like to have the best intentions and sign up to study a course or program and then for it to feel like life can’t accomodate it. There’s not enough free time. There’s too much pressure already. All the valid reasons and the excuses.

I also know that we can often start something full of motivation and excitement and lose momentum mid-way through. We kid ourselves that we can skip a week here or there and catch up under pressure later, but the reality is this creates more overwhelm and anxiety that we don’t need.

That’s why I want to share some of the tips that helped me to prioritise the learning I signed up for, even when life was busy and the pressure was on.

A client asked me to bring ChatGPT and its possible impact on the assistant profession into a forthcoming corporate workshop, so I set it to test today with my to-do list as a test case.

I approached it through the lens of how it can create efficiency and whether it could do everything better than I could as a (former) EA.

Here’s what I put to the test:

Comparison to an article I’ve written for a magazine - based on my long experience working with CEOs

For ideas for a freebie to gift to my newsletter community next week - I related this to coming up with event ideas

Possible questions to ask in a podcast interview next month - I related this to creating a briefing document for a CEO

Writing a section of my next newsletter - I related this to drafting internal comms

Content for a solo podcast episode I’m recording - I related this to creating town hall content or first draft report writing on a market insight

An email response to a frequently asked question - I related this to a BAU assistant task

The ability to influence is one of the most critical weapons an executive assistant needs to have in their arsenal to be successful in their work, day-to-day and their career.

To be able to influence with impact is to understand that sometimes ideas and concepts need space to breathe.

It’s also to be able to choose moments carefully, adjust style as needed and respond with grace when things don’t go your way.

There’s an art to knowing when to press forward with tenacity and when to bide your time for the best results.

Here are some quick tips to help you influence through a roadblock with ease and grace.

Writing can be a huge challenge for many Executive Assistants and the source of hours of lost time spent procrastinating and agonising over what to say and how to say it.

You’re in the right place if you’ve ever wished you knew the best practices, tips and tricks that would elevate your written materials and communications and take away the frustration and the guess work.

Here’s the thing: business writing is part art and part science.

A few little tweaks here and there and adjusting your thinking brings less stress, more ease, faster replies and more polish.

Here’s 5 tips to get you started with confidently writing on behalf of others.

Performance reviews can often be the source of frustration and disappointment for many administration professionals.

It can feel difficult to quantify or measure the impact of the work an assistant performs when for the most part, it isn't like a project with a start, end and directly obvious outcomes. The work can feel invisible and therefore overlooked or misunderstood.

This can be disheartening for a profession whose function exists to support the success of others.

There's an art to guiding a conversation and helping an executive see beyond core responsibilities and through to the strategic and impactful work that is very often under the radar. Entering into an executive mindset is the key to a positive review season, and here are some tips to help.

Being the right hand to a CEO is an incredible experience.

So much visibility, learning opportunities and variety, but life at the top has some unique challenges that nobody really prepares you for.

If you have aspirations of becoming a CEO’s assistant (or even chief of staff), here are 5 things you should be prepared for.

Support ratios (EA : executive) have blown out to the highest I've seen in a LONG time.

With so much uncertainty in the world, difficulty finding affordable talent and the pressure to cut overheads, it's no surprise organisations are choosing not to replace EAs when they move on and instead increase the support ratio of existing EAs to compensate.

Increasing support ratios seems to be logical but it's really bad news for both EAs and organisations.

This is a tricky question because we’re in a digital era where the access lines have been blurred by the convenience of technology AND we’re still navigating an unsettling time where the only constant is change.

At the same time we know we have to take care of ourselves and nurture our wellbeing because being constantly ‘on’ is terrible for our health and wellbeing.

I’m often asked whether being available outside hours is expected, how much is reasonable and how to handle people who continually overstep.

Here’s what helped me in my career.