Your Executive Probably Doesn’t Know Half of What You Do

One of the strange things about being a very good Executive Assistant is that much of your best work disappears.

The meeting happens. The executive arrives prepared. The stakeholder has already been reassured. The diary clash never becomes a problem. The board paper is ready. The customer issue reaches the right person.

Everything works, which is exactly what a strong EA wants. The difficulty is that smooth delivery can make the effort behind it almost invisible.

You know the value you are adding. The question is whether your executive fully sees it.

Many EAs assume that if they do a good job, people will notice. Sometimes they will. Often they won’t.

Executives are dealing with customers, revenue, people, investors, operations, deadlines and whatever issue has landed on their desk that day. They are unlikely to keep a running mental record of every problem you prevented, every decision you helped move forward or every hour you gave back to them.

That is why it is worth asking a simple question.

If someone asked your executive, “What exactly does your EA do?”, what would they say?

Would they talk mainly about diary management, travel and meetings? Or would they describe the way you protect their capacity, improve the flow of information, manage stakeholders, identify risks and help priorities move forward?

There can be a very big gap between those two descriptions.

The challenge is to make sure the value you add is understood as clearly as the tasks you complete.

STOP REPORTING ACTIVITY. START SHOWING IMPACT.

A long list of completed tasks rarely tells the full story. What matters more is the effect your work had.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“I organised the leadership meeting” describes activity.

“I restructured the agenda around the three decisions required, ensured the right information was circulated beforehand and reduced the meeting from 90 minutes to 55” shows impact.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“I rearranged the CEO’s diary” tells us what you did.

“I protected two uninterrupted blocks so the CEO could complete the investment proposal before Friday’s deadline” tells us why it mattered.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The work may be similar, but the perception of the role changes completely.

A useful question to ask yourself each week is "What is different because I was involved?"

That helps shift the focus from effort to outcome.

CHANGE THE CONVERSATION WITH YOUR EXECUTIVE

The regular EA–executive one-to-one is another opportunity.

Too many of these meetings become entirely operational. Tuesday’s flight, Thursday’s meeting, the dinner booking, who is attending which call and what needs moving in the diary.

All of those things matter, but if every conversation stays at that level, the relationship itself can become defined by administration.

A stronger one-to-one still covers logistics, while also creating space for what you are seeing across the business.

What decision is coming up? Which stakeholder relationship needs attention? Is there a risk developing? Is there something your executive may not yet have spotted?

And importantly, what are you taking ownership of yourself?

The more you can reduce unnecessary chasing, confusion and follow-up for your executive, the more clearly your wider value becomes visible.

THE MEETING STARTS BEFORE THE MEETING

Meetings are another good example.

A transactional view sees the meeting as beginning when everyone joins the room or logs onto the call.

A more strategic EA starts earlier.

What decision is the meeting supposed to produce? Who actually needs to attend? What information should people read beforehand? Where is disagreement likely to emerge? What does your executive need to know before the discussion starts?

Thinking this way changes the role from organiser to enabler of better decisions.

The same applies afterwards.

Organisations lose an extraordinary amount of momentum between “we agreed that” and “it actually happened”.

Decisions are made. Responsibilities are vaguely allocated. Everyone leaves assuming someone else is dealing with the next step.

EAs are often in a strong position to see across those gaps.

Finance may be waiting for Operations. Operations may think Legal has approved something. Legal may not even know it is waiting for them.

Meanwhile, the executive assumes everything is moving.

A strong EA spots these gaps early and helps keep momentum moving in the right direction.

MAKE THE INVISIBLE MORE VISIBLE

There is nothing wrong with occasionally stepping back and showing where you have added value.

You might review where you have saved executive time, identified a risk early, accelerated a decision, improved a process, strengthened a stakeholder relationship or removed a recurring problem from your executive’s plate.

That kind of reflection gives your executive a clearer picture of how the role is evolving.

It also gives you better evidence when discussing development, scope, progression or future responsibilities.

AI MAKES THIS EVEN MORE IMPORTANT

This becomes more important as AI changes executive support.

Scheduling, drafting, research, meeting summaries, travel options and routine document preparation are already becoming easier to automate.

As a result, value will increasingly sit in areas such as judgment, context, prioritisation, influence, organisational awareness, decision support, trust and the ability to recognise when something does not look right.

It will also sit in understanding what your executive is trying to achieve, sometimes before they have fully articulated it themselves.

The irony is that these are often the least visible parts of the role.

That means EAs need to become better at showing where their contribution sits and how it supports the wider business.

MAKE YOUR CONTRIBUTION CLEAR

You do not need to announce every success or turn every week into a performance report.

What matters is that your executive understands what you are seeing, what you are thinking, what you are taking ownership of and what changed because of your involvement.

That is where the shift from transactional support to strategic partnership becomes much more tangible.

So ask yourself this:

If someone asked your executive tomorrow, “What value does your EA bring to the business?”, what would they say?

And would their answer describe the EA you are today, or the same EA you were two years ago?

=============================================================================================

About the Author: Richard Arnott is the creator of The Advanced Certificate for the Executive Assistant: ACEA® and sits on the Editorial Board of Lucy Brazier OBE’s Executive Support Magazine. He has worked in Executive Assistant development for many years, with a focus on helping EAs strengthen the strategic, commercial and professional capabilities they need to work effectively alongside senior executives in an increasingly complex workplace.

About ACEA®:The Advanced Certificate for the Executive Assistant: ACEA® is a professional development programme designed to help experienced Executive Assistants broaden their business understanding and develop from transactional support towards becoming more strategic partners to their executives.

ACEA® is independently certified by the Institute of Training and Occupational Learning (IToL) and the Institute of Administrative Management (IAM), accredited by the CPD Standards Office, and is an IAAP Approved Course.

New for 2027, ACEA® will introduce AI Workflow Architecture, helping EAs move beyond simply using AI tools to understanding how AI can be built into smarter, more effective workflows across the executive office and wider organisation.