Life as an EA
A session with Grace Aitcheson
In an interview session held on February, 2nd 2023 with Grace Aitcheson, the EA to the Vice President (Finance and Administration), at Wilfrid Laurier University, she took time to narrate her personal experiences as an EA and what is also expected of potential and upcoming EAs.
She said an EA must be trustworthy, dependable, reliable, and competent. Confidentiality is a key attribute of an EA also, as every aspect of the job involves a high level of confidentiality. An EA must also be well-organized while maintaining a cordial working relationship with people.
There are basic skills required to professionally handle this role, which include both technical and cognitive skills. Basic technical skills include amongst others communication skills, computer applications, and software knowledge as well as expertise in MS word, Excel, Team, and PowerPoint, virtual applications such as Zoom, record management, and of course typing skills which is very essential too
She loves this career because she loves working with people, the role has given her the opportunity to interact and have contact with a lot of people as well as have a good feel of what is going on in the organization she is working for.
Her responsibilities in the position include but are not limited to, supporting the Vice President to be a hero and successful in everything, she organizes Board/ Senate meetings, teamwork with other EAs to ensure a well-coordinated event within the ranks and files, planning Board meetings, issue agendas, and generate meeting reports. She also reviews policies and agreements pending the approval of the VP, travel management and other tasks that are assigned to her by the VP as well as ascribe to non-job related support, for instance, the University Response Team.
In sharing her experiences in scheduling a meeting, the following procedures are religiously followed; confirm and reconfirm the scheduled meeting, determine the attendees from the meeting host (VP), confirm the duration of the meeting, determine if the meeting would be virtual or in-person or hybrid, confirm if there would be materials to be distributed along with the agenda when the invite is sent, confirm the venue of the meeting and book the venue, if dealing with external customers, confirm what is the virtual platform of their preference e.g. Zoom, MS Team, etc.
In organizing and prioritizing, she organizes her emails using colour codes for all emails from the VP and also has subfolders of senders’ emails. By so doing, she is able to deal with emails of high importance first. She uses the department one drive (shared drive), where records are properly saved in folders, accessible to every employee in the department, and easy to retrieve for reference.
She is highly skilled with typing as this is adopted for most communication, emails, and letters, communication skills, ICT knowledge which includes, updating departmental portal, millennium software that provides budget information putting invoices for payment, raising purchase orders for office equipment like Laptops, software for agreements, update department website and knowledge of credit card processing.
EA roles also come with some challenges which differ from one EA to another. Her share of challenges at work include, setting up a meeting for multiple senior Executives with a busy calendar, it is really tough to find time in their calendars but you can manage that by scheduling such appointments several months ahead of time, last minutes meeting requests from the Vice Presidents, it always difficult to set it up, rescheduling meetings of senior Executives is always a challenge, especially when it involves several participants. To handle these challenges one must be proactive, for her, she books meetings several months ahead of time.
In conclusion, the role of an EA is very demanding one and she advises interested and upcoming EAs to equip themselves with skills such as multi takings, research skills, good communication skills, typing skills, the ability to work with a lot of interruptions, and changing priorities, teamwork capabilities, as well as excellent organizational skills and attention to details. Are you still interested in the role of an EA?
A summary from Leader Assistant podcast by Jeremy Burrow
I've selected two recordings from Jeremy Burrows' Leader Assistant podcast, titled What Executive Says to Assistant: The Good, Bad, and Ugly (#180) with Kernel J. as a guest and How to develop a winning partnership with your Executive (#184). These topics fit with my interests and goals as an EA, as I strive to support my Executive effectively and efficiently. I can do this by creating a lasting partnership with my Executive and by being proactive about the fact that an EA works with Executives who have different leadership philosophies, which could result in either a positive or negative work environment. How would I handle these situations in a professional way?
The podcast suggested the approach of always engaging with the Executive through a confident conversation, communicating through open dialogue, intentionally structuring your conversation, and keeping it on point and brief. This will enhance my primary role of supporting my Executive to be a hero and successful. Asking plenty of questions is crucial for an EA in a new position. Never stop asking questions to get more information while providing solutions. G. Aitcheson (Project interview, February 2nd, 2023), explained, she constantly interacts with the Executive, is open with communication, and asks questions to fulfill her main responsibility of providing him with support for success. "A good Assistant is a critical productivity booster for a busy CEO" (Duncan, 2011, n.d.). If your Executive wants you to tackle multiple jobs simultaneously, you can gently decline by reminding him of the priority list and offering to assign or postpone this task. The Executive may have a propensity for micromanaging the EA and is also driven by a desire for excellence as well as on meeting deadlines. Identifying this feature of control and your capability to help your Executive have trust, will enable him to delegate tasks to you as his EA. According to Duncan (2011), there are two important criteria that affect how effectively a company utilizes an Assistant. The Executive willingness to assign portions of their workload to the assistant is the first factor. He also asserted that the most successful CEO’s give careful consideration to the parts of their workload that can be delegated to their assistants or reorganized to be partially delegated by them. If the EA is supporting multiple Executives to manage the various leadership styles adopted by each of them. For the difficult Executives, you should share the successful strategy employed with other Executives that could be adopted to foster a better working relationship with the difficult Executives.
Depending on the Executive's leadership style, the workplace environment for the EA can be either positive or negative. Some Executives are a pleasure to work with because they recognize the EA’s value to them and the organization and say things like, "Thank you," "You are so professional and diligent about your duties," and "You are so valuable to me and the organization." Your support for our achievements is priceless. These words of encouragement inspire and foster a working environment that allows the EA to perform at a greater level. On the other hand, some Executives might not value the assistance or participation of an EA. With statements such as, "You are only taking up space and wasting our income, why should I pay you?" Do you understand what your responsibilities are in this situation? These phrases undermine motivation and foster a toxic work environment. High emotional intelligence skills are needed in this circumstance, along with HR support when necessary.
Appreciate the Executives who value and respect the contributions of an EA, and keep up the good work; however, in a toxic environment, you can only function for as long as you can influence the Executives to change their leadership mindset. A toxic workplace is one that is abusive, unsafe, and unhealthy to work in. With the uncertainties of the type of Executive you may support, do you have the emotional intelligence, knowledge, skills, and mindset ready to take on this special role?
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Burrows J.(n.d.) Leader Assistant podcast(podcast Episode #180 and # 184)
https://www.buzzsprout.com/275261?client_source=large_player&iframe=true&referrer=https://www.buzzsprout.com/275261.js?player=large#
https://www.buzzsprout.com/275261?client_source=large_player&iframe=true&referrer=https://www.buzzsprout.com/275261.js?player=large#
An Exciting EA Life
