From the course: Administrative Professional Tips

Your boss

From the course: Administrative Professional Tips

Your boss

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- Are you and your boss working as a team on a daily basis? Do you have common goals? Are you clear on his or her priorities? The answers to these questions will determine how successful you two will be not only on a daily basis but also your long-term outcome. Throughout my years as an administrative support professional, I have worked for several different executives in various industries. One thing that remains the same about all of them is that knowing their priorities is critical to establishing a productive and healthy foundation for your working relationship. Once you know the things that are critical for your executive, it can help you to focus their day, persevere through times of adversity and stress, and teach you how to play a major role in the achievement of your executive's goals and objectives. One of the first things that I often ask in a job interview and again on my first days of being on the job is for clarification on what the goals of my executive are. By knowing this information, I am able to ascertain what calls are priority, what meetings are necessary, and where my focus should be primarily throughout the day. Without knowing this information, I am at risk of spending time on things that don't help the executive move her agenda forward. First, with every phone call and meeting I arrange or that comes through our office, I ask myself if this is something that is part of my executive's goal. If it is, then I proceed accordingly. If the request is outside of my executive's priorities, then I look to see if it rightfully belongs in one of her direct reports' purview. If that is the case, then I hand it off to the appropriate office. If it does not, I look further into the organization for the right person to handle it. Oftentimes we think it's easier or quicker to handle it ourselves, but this is a bad habit to adopt. We can easily find ourselves overwhelmed with a lot of tasks that don't rightfully belong in our office. Secondly, I often revisit our office priorities to ensure that they are current and there have been no changes. This is particularly helpful when the pressure and stress is on. With her help, we are able to narrow down the things that go back to her goals and remove the other items. We also give the most importance to the things with the closest due dates. Although there are many things that are important and need attention, they are not necessarily immediate and can often wait. I am fortunate that the style of my current executive is cool, calm, and collected. This is very helpful in a office that is subject to many emergency situations. Our styles gel as I'm not one who is subject to panicking either. We methodically approach situations together and pull the right personnel into the situation when necessary. If I did not work for someone with this personality style, I would do my best to bring calm to the situation and ensure that my executive had everything they needed throughout the day, even ensuring they stay hydrated and set aside time for meals. This is extremely important as our physical being has a direct effect on our mental and emotional states. The more in sync you are with the style of your executive and their priorities, the more effective you will be in concentrating your efforts into the areas that will have the biggest impact on achieving the goals for your office. Additionally, you will help to create a calm environment within your office space by doing your best to take authority over the things within your control.

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