What does an executive assistant do? Behind the scenes

As a company that specializes in providing executive assistant services for startup executives, we’ve heard it all: their pain points and stressors, their motivations, and, especially, their hesitations. One of the biggest reasons executives seem reluctant to onboard an EA is that they don’t really know what an executive assistant does. Do you?

Table of contents

• What is an executive assistant?
• Why do you think you don’t need an executive assistant?
• What does an executive assistant do?
• What do you gain from getting an executive assistant?

What is an executive assistant?

Executive assistants are strategic partners for any member of the leadership team. It’s most common for CEOs to have their own executive assistant, but anyone from a CRO to a VP or even the head of a department can get better at their job by having executive support. 

Among the many ways one can describe an executive assistant, “strategic partner” is one of the most accurate, since everything they do is strategically planned to make you, their executive, your most productive self. The purpose of an executive assistant is to help you succeed in your professional and personal lives, and they will do everything possible to make that happen. 

Forget the archaic concept of EAs being simple order-takers, and start seeing them as strategic business partners. Consider them an extension of yourself, as a second brain. Call it whatever you want, but the truth is, that executive assistants are not a luxury. They’re a necessity for any startup executive who wants to drive their company to the next level, faster. 

Why do you think you don’t need an executive assistant?

You’re probably thinking: If executive assistants are so important for startup executives, how come I’ve never felt the need to hire one? Don’t worry: not knowing the answer to that question is more common than you might think. 

Let’s say your CEO has an executive assistant and you haven’t really seen them much, other than taking notes during meetings or handing everyone materials at the beginning of the board meeting. What do they do the rest of the time?

As we said before, executive assistants are an extension of their executives, which means that a lot of the work they do happens behind the scenes. If you see them pop up in a meeting or travel with their executive, it’s simply because their presence would benefit their executive, not because they need to be visible to be effective. 

In other words, the way to measure an executive assistant’s results is by looking at their executive’s success. EAs are not there to steal the spotlight; they’re there to shine a light on their executive’s role. EAs don’t want you to see everything they did to help their executive meet their goals; they want their executive to look great by delivering the results everyone expects of them. 

That’s why, when you receive an email from your CEO, all you see at the end is their signature. What you don’t know is that it was probably the executive assistant to the CEO who drafted and sent the email without any involvement from their exec. The fact that you don’t know everything an EA does for their executive, doesn’t mean they aren’t getting the job done. They just want it to look like it all came from their executive. 

Startup executives have too much work to do and too little time to complete it. If getting an EA sounds like something you’d like, but imposter syndrome says you need to finish all your work by yourself, do yourself a favor and find a way to quiet those thoughts. The reality is having an executive assistant is almost the only way you can get all your work done. 

What does an executive assistant do?

Let’s take a look at some real-life examples of how executive assistants work behind the scenes.

• Simplify the delegation process
  Not delegating effectively is doing yourself a disservice. Delegation is a necessary skill all startup executives should master.
  
  If you hire an outstanding EA, you won’t only have someone on the receiving end bringing every delegated project to 100%; they can automate the delegation process, too. Silvina, one of our EAs, really goes the extra mile by checking her exec’s inbox first thing in the morning. She identifies which items will be delegated to her, moves them to the “delegated” folder, and takes ownership before her executive even starts her day.
• Help you reach inbox zero every day
  One of our customers, an executive at Veho, came from a little to no email culture. That’s why interrupting his work to check his inbox felt like a waste of time. His executive assistant noticed his struggle and took ownership of his email entirely. She reads, analyzes, synthesizes, and shares a summary of his entire inbox in a single, consolidated EOD Slack message each day.
  
  Thanks to that approach, this executive stopped checking his inbox and became more responsive than ever.
• Bring balance to your life
  Executive assistants who perform above average share a series of traits. One of them is how much they care for their executive’s well-being.
  
  Nobody knows an executive’s calendar better than their EAs. That’s why Sarah, one of our assistants, makes decisions when she notices her executive has been working odd hours. If he worked late one night, she moves all his early morning meetings around, so he can start the day a bit later.
• Minimize decision fatigue
  Planning a work trip can be very time-consuming. Making sure dates don’t interfere with any important meetings can be quite draining. If, on top of that, you need to buy plane tickets, make hotel reservations, rent a car, and make dinner reservations, it will take a whole day and will likely be a nuisance.
  
  One of our EAs created a series of Notion pages she shares with her exec before booking. They include airline, hotel, and restaurant options, and the exec approves them just by clicking on his favorites. She then proceeds to book, and an entire trip is planned from beginning to end. The executive’s involvement takes 5 minutes, all async.
• Be a more present leader
  One of our EAs at Notion has helped her executive become a better leader for his team. She reminds him of upcoming team members’ birthdays and work anniversaries, and looks up gift options that the employee would love, while also meeting policy and budget criteria.
  
  With a single message, he can simply choose a gift and his EA arranges the purchase and delivery logistics to recognize the team member thoughtfully, while saving the effort of the work in the background.
• Expand your network
  Being on Medium or LinkedIn is a goal for many executives. If you also want to strengthen your social media presence and expand your network but simply don’t have the time for it, bring your EA on board.
  
  They can create a content plan and write and post on your behalf. Plus, they can add new connections, and even interact with them. If you’re worried about them not getting your tone of voice right, let them shadow you for a bit. You’ll be surprised how quickly they’ll learn to sound just like you.
• Board meeting prep
  Prepping for a board meeting is a highly stressful moment for any startup CEO, but if you get your EA involved, that big load will become less heavy.
  
  One of our customers leverages his EA in a really smart way. Anytime he thinks of something that should be added to the deck, he texts his EA about it. It can be a note about doing research, pulling up some data, organizing it in a more visual way, or simply sharing a thought that occurred to him. By doing so, he gets it out of his head and his EA picks it up and starts preparing the content outline for the deck. By the time the board meeting approaches, a big part of the work is already done.
    

Now that you know that not everything executives deliver is done entirely by them, is there anything you wish you could delegate to an executive assistant? If you’re thinking about bringing an EA to your team, let’s chat. We might be able to guide you in the process. Worst case scenario, if we can’t help you, our team will at least point you in the right direction.