Characteristics of a Leader Assistant

Speaker 1 · 0:00

Welcome to The Leader Assistant Podcast. You're listening to episode one.

Jeremy · 0:05

Thanks for listening. Hey friends, it's Jeremy Burrows, host of The Leader Assistant Podcast. I wanted to add this bonus clip to the beginning of this episode. I published this episode at the end of March 2019, and a lot has happened since then. So I just wanted to give you a couple of quick notes as you dive in to the show. First of all, you can check out the show notes at leaderassistant.com/one for this episode, and then each episode has show notes corresponding to the episode number. So if you're wanting the show notes for episode 54, it's leaderassistant.com/fivefour. Also, you can join our online Slack and Facebook communities for free at leaderassistant.com/community. And then there's a book that I've published since this episode first aired called The Leader Assistant, Four Pillars of a Confident, Game-Changing Assistant. And you can check that out at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other major retailers. It's also on Audible for the audiobook fans out there. And there's a Kindle ebook version and a Barnes & Noble ebook version as well. You can check that out at leaderassistantbook.com. Thanks for being here. I hope you enjoy the show. I recorded a ton of episodes in a short amount of time to really jumpstart the podcast, and I had scripted out the interviews pretty strictly because I had never done this before, and I wanted to produce a lot of content in a short amount of time, and so I erred on the side of over-scripting early on. So the first probably 75 episodes roughly are pretty scripted, and then you'll notice in the more recent episodes, as you get closer to 100 and after, I started mixing it up a little bit more, and I feel like I've become a better interviewer and been really working hard at producing helpful, valuable content to help you lead well and resist burnout as an Executive Assistant, Administrative Business Partner, Administrative Assistant, Chief of Staff, and all the other various titles we have in the administrative professional industry. So thanks again for listening. Enjoy the show. Feel free to reach out to me, podcastatleaderassistant.com, and I would love to hear from you and enjoy.

Speaker 1 · 2:48

The Leader Assistant Podcast exists to encourage and challenge assistants to become irreplaceable, game-changing Leader Assistants. Here's your host, Jeremy Burrows, who also happens to be my husband.

Jeremy · 3:04

Thanks, honey. Hi, everybody. I'm excited to launch The Leader Assistant Podcast. It's kind of a crazy idea to think that I could launch a podcast on top of my side hustle, which is goburrows.com, blog and resources, some one-on-one coaching, a few speaking engagements here and there, all while I'm a full-time executive assistant at a booming startup in St. Louis, Missouri, in the artificial intelligence software space. But I'm really excited for the possibilities. I'm not excited for listening to how my voice sounds after I record this, but you know what? I'm hoping that with a little bit of practice, my narrating voice will sound much better over time. So thank you for your patience. Thank you for tuning in. If you're an assistant, I'm very, very thankful for all the work you do. I've been an executive assistant for about 12 years. I really, really enjoy the job because there's never a dull moment. I love learning about all different types of the business. I really enjoy helping others. And I'm an organization detail oriented OCD freak. So it really fits well with the role of an EA who has to keep track of a ton and ton of details. So the leader assistant, the idea with the leader assistant title is that we assistants support the highest of the highest celebrities, politicians, CEOs, executives, pastors, and so on. And those are the people that typically are called leaders. My hope is to challenge executives as well as assistants, because assistants are one of the most influential members of a team. And I believe that assistants must be leaders and are leaders. But I've talked to many, many assistants who don't see themselves as leaders, or they don't know what to do to step up their game. And I think, you know, I work for an artificial intelligence software company, and I recently published a blog on the five ways we can future-proof our career for the AI revolution. You can check that out at goburrows.com/ai. But I'll also do another podcast episode on the topic as well. But the idea is that when I talk about a leader assistant, I'm talking about someone who's not going to be replaced by an artificial intelligence software or robot someday. Somebody that leads their executive, that leads their manager. And so that's what I want to talk about. I want to quickly run through eight characteristics of a leader assistant. So thanks for joining. But before I jump in, I've got a special guest to share a leadership quote for the day. Today's quote comes from Robert Greenleaf.

Speaker 1 · 6:36

Good leaders must first become good servants.

Jeremy · 6:39

Thank you, Weston. That was my seven-year-old, Weston Ford Burrows. As a side note, I'm trying to get my boys involved with what I do. And yes, I may have bribed them with some Oreos, but hopefully they had fun. And if they continue to enjoy it or just enjoy Oreos, you'll hear from them more on this podcast. All right, so characteristic number one, loyal. I believe a leader assistant is loyal to their executive. Practical way to put this would be if you're in a meeting with another staff member, and your boss calls you, your executive calls you, you should answer the phone. I have a rule where anytime my boss calls or my boss's wife calls, I will answer the phone no matter what meeting I'm in. Now, I'm sure I'll step out and be respectful of other people. I'm not going to answer in the middle of the meeting, but I will step out and take the call right away. So I think that prioritizing tasks that come from other people as well. So if you've got a lot of requests coming in, as most assistants do, I think that part of being loyal is prioritizing the tasks that come from your executive higher than the tasks that come from other people in the organization. Characteristic of a leader assistant. Number two, a mind reader, aka anticipating the needs of your boss. I asked several executives, what's one thing you wish your assistant would do more of? And every single one of them said, I wish they could read my mind. In other words, they want an assistant who anticipates what's needed long before it's needed. As assistants, we should be thinking five or six steps ahead or more. Why? Because our bosses are always thinking ahead. And we need to help plan for what's coming next. Whether it's next month, next year, next week, we need to anticipate and sit down with our boss on a regular basis to ask them what's on top of their mind, ask them what they're concerned about, and work to help them accomplish those goals and take care of those issues. All right, number three is organized. Many people hire an assistant because they need help getting organized, but other executives are really, really organized. They just spend too much time on their own tasks. So I think our bosses should not spend so much time, if any, organizing their calendar or files or formatting a presentation unless they really, really enjoy and are top of the charts when it comes to building a slide presentation, for example. I think they should be meeting with key staff. They should be reading books that inspire them, working on strategic plans, creating powerful and engaging content for the next meeting, for the next blog. We need to be able to synthesize everything that our boss throws at us and to prioritize tasks and projects and execute those projects. With little oversight. So again, be organized. We won't make it long if we're hired because we have a great personality or work really hard. So I think a true leader assistant is very, very organized and can handle all the details. Alright, the next one is flexible. I've seen a loyal assistant who is organized, but they are not flexible. They're not able to adapt in the moment. Instead of getting excited about change, they freeze and panic. And really, to be honest, early on in my career, this was me. I hated last minute changes. I would get defeated because all the work I put into a project seemed to be all for not. However, I started to see change as a good thing. And instead of feeling like that work was pointless, I realized the wasted work was part of the process and helped me get better at my job. If you're driving your car right now, honk your horn if your boss loves to change things up at the last minute. Okay, maybe don't honk your horn, but I'm sure you can relate. Your boss knows when to throw everything out the window and start over or when to adjust the plan slightly right before a deadline. So again, an assistant needs to be flexible in these situations. Now, I will say kind of a side note here. We're willing to push back is very key as well. So I think that a Rockstar Leader Assistant should not only be flexible, but should also know when to push back and say, listen, we can't change the plan this late in the game. It's not worth our time and energy. We just need to move forward. So we have to be willing to push back when appropriate to help our boss keep a level head. If they're always changing things at the last minute, they could simply have an unhealthy pattern that needs to be addressed before everyone burns out and loses trust in them. Alright, the next characteristic of a leader assistant is focused. In today's fast-paced, screens everywhere, never-ending notifications, and alert society, staying focused on one task at a time is more difficult than ever. So I think one of the most crucial characteristics of a good assistant is the ability to focus. And honestly, most executives that I've worked with struggle to stay engaged, so an assistant who lacks focus will not help at all. Most executives that I've worked with in my 12-plus years as an assistant are kind of scatterbrained. They run around chasing new ideas all the time. They're brilliant, but they have a hard time sitting down and focusing on one task for a long period of time. So I think we need to be able to focus on tasks and also help our bosses stay on task. All right, number six is Others Centered. So I think the job of an assistant is generally not a glamorous role. I'm sure you know that. I've experienced that with a lot of behind-the-scenes work, hours and hours of work that no one, maybe even our boss, will ever see. If you want to be the center of attention, the last job you should have is an assistant. Your job is to further your boss's goals and agenda, not your own. So assistants must care about their boss and other team members more than they do themselves. So whether you need to grab coffee for a meeting or make 100 copies of a proposal, we should be happy to help and excited to contribute. A woe-is-me attitude will not cut it. However, we need to be careful not to let our bosses abuse their authority. A good boss will give us challenging and interesting projects and tasks, as well as the necessary mundane tasks. A good boss will leave us alone on our days off and always be grateful to us for putting aside our desires to serve them and the team. So again, we must be others-centered. All right, characteristic number seven is admits mistakes. Admitting when you're wrong is not easy, but it's a necessary skill to master if you want to be an impactful leader who contributes to building a healthy culture in your workplace. Odds are you've made a mistake in the last few weeks or maybe even the last few hours. Maybe you said something that wasn't appropriate. If so, who do you need to apologize to? Seek this person out ASAP and admit you were wrong. The longer you wait, the more difficult and less impactful it will be. My boss made a comment once that sounded like he was saying putting together desks was not as important as writing software or coding. He did not mean it that way, but it came across as a little offensive to some. So he owned his error and apologized to the entire company. It was a very powerful culture moment where the CEO was willing to admit they were wrong and correct it and quickly. Lastly, characteristic number eight, friendly. Assistants should be likable. They should be the kind of people who encourage others, have a good sense of humor, don't take themselves too seriously. Our bosses and teams spend a lot of time with us, so being personable and having good social skills and enjoying working with others is very important. But this doesn't mean we have to be an extrovert. In fact, introverts are some of the best assistants because we, yes, I'm an introvert, like to sit by ourselves in a quiet office and get stuff done. I'm a strong introvert with extroverted skills and tendencies, and my current and prior bosses have been high extroverts. This has worked out well. So if you're an introvert, you may work better with an extroverted executive who knows how to respect your need for space. So there are plenty more characteristics I could list, but I want to hear from you. What do you think? What characteristics do you feel are important to look for in an assistant? I'd love to hear from you on LinkedIn, or you can email me at podcast at leaderassistant.com. So that concludes today's episode. I'm super excited that you've made it this far. Thanks for listening. Stay tuned for episode two and subsequent episodes. I've got a list of guests that have agreed to come on to the podcast, so I'm excited to interview some people. And in the meantime, here's a joke from. Thanks for listening. See you next time.

Speaker 1 · 16:59

Check out this episode's show notes at leaderassist.com.

Speaker 3 · 17:12

My daddy has stinky feet.