Over the past 25 years of my career, I’ve had a lot of job titles and supported a lot of executives. I’ve had good bosses and bad bosses. I’ve worked for males and females. I’ve had executives who were old enough to be my grandparents and some fresh out of college. I’ve had some who were willing to let me be their admin from day one, and some who had to be coaxed, trained, and persuaded.
Then I found myself in the C-suite supporting the president of a national telecommunications company. It was the best job I’d ever landed, and I was working for the best executive I’d ever had. The only hitch was the work environment was one of the most toxic and awful experiences of my career.
The company was going through a bankruptcy at the time, and I arrived right smack in the middle of it all. Partnering with my executive had never been so critical to his success and my own – and it made a world of difference throughout our time there together.
It was in that position that I caught the vision of what a meaningful and productive partnership looked like, and the potential for me as an administrative professional when I engaged with my executive at that level.
A few years later, when I transitioned into virtual assistance, I knew I wanted to differentiate myself from other home-based companies I’d come across in my research. So, my tagline for my company was “Your Professional Administrative Partner.” From the moment someone found me, I set the expectation that I was partnering with them, not just doing administrative tasks for them.
There are many different facets to developing and maintaining a good partnership with your executive. And trying to strengthen each and every one can be overwhelming. Fortunately, there’s a lot of expert advice out there via books, blogs, podcasts, and more that can help. In this week’s feature article, I talk about one key element of building and maintaining a powerful partnership with your executive – the daily meeting! We’re also highlighting some of our favorite resources on partnership development on our Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn pages.
Partnership development takes time and effort, but the result is a valued and respected working relationship with your executive that makes your work more meaningful and enjoyable!
Supporting your administrative success,
Julie Perrine
P.S. As an admin, your primary responsibility is to support your executive. To do this effectively, you need the right set of skills, and you need to learn how to work well with your executive. But what happens once you have both of these things down? The next step in your professional relationship is strengthening your partnership to ensure you both achieve success. This All Things Admin Training on Demand session will teach you the stages of partnership development, how to earn the trust and respect of your executive, the importance of developing an indispensable administrative brand, and more! Register for this session now!
