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Your Title Doesn't Define Your Career. Your Skills Do.
The admin profession doesn't come with a clear competency framework the way finance, engineering, or marketing does. Nobody hands you a skills matrix when you start your first EA role. Nobody tells you which capabilities will get you promoted and which ones are just expected. You're left to figure it out on your own, and most people default to getting better at the things they already do, rather than building the skills that would actually change their trajectory.
That's why we built this framework. It's based on Meg Steinschauer's 15+ years of experience as an Executive Assistant and Chief of Staff, combined with patterns from hundreds of conversations with admin professionals at every level. These aren't theoretical competencies pulled from a textbook. They're the skills that consistently show up in the careers of admin professionals who are respected, well-compensated, and genuinely fulfilled in their work.
Six Skills That Define Top-Performing Admin Professionals
Skill 1: Strategic Thinking
What it means: Seeing beyond the task in front of you. Understanding how your work connects to the bigger picture, the organisation's goals, your executive's priorities, the dynamics between teams. Strategic thinkers don't just execute. They anticipate. They connect dots that other people miss. They're the reason their executive is always one step ahead.
What it looks like in practice: You're not just managing a calendar, you're protecting your executive's time based on what matters most this quarter. You're not just booking a meeting, you're thinking about who should be in the room and what outcome the meeting needs to produce. You spot a bottleneck in a project before it becomes a crisis, and you fix it.
How to develop it: Start by asking "why" more often. Why is this meeting happening? Why is this project a priority? What's the strategic context behind the request? The more you understand the reasoning behind the work, the better positioned you are to add value beyond execution.
→ Take the Connected Leader Assessment to see where you stand on strategic thinking
Skill 2: Stakeholder Management
What it means: Building and maintaining effective working relationships with the people who matter, your executive, their leadership team, external partners, and cross-functional colleagues. This includes managing up (the relationship with your boss), managing across (peers and other teams), and managing expectations (everyone).
What it looks like in practice: Your executive trusts you to handle sensitive situations without micromanagement. Other leaders in the business come to you directly because they know you'll get things done. You can read a room, adapt your communication style, and navigate conflicting priorities without creating drama.
How to develop it: Pay attention to how different people prefer to communicate and make decisions. Learn what each stakeholder cares about and what stresses them out. Practice having honest conversations about priorities and trade-offs, the ability to say "I can do this, but not that" is one of the most valuable skills in stakeholder management.
→ Online Course: Managing Up with Intention
Skill 3: Communication and Influence
What it means: Expressing your ideas clearly, persuasively, and with confidence, whether you're writing an email, presenting to a leadership team, or pushing back on an unreasonable request. Influence isn't about manipulation. It's about being articulate enough and credible enough that people listen to you, even when you don't have positional authority.
What it looks like in practice: Your emails are clear and concise. You can summarise complex information in a way that makes decisions easier. When you speak up in meetings, people pay attention. You can push back on your executive, respectfully but firmly, and they value you more for it, not less.
How to develop it: Start writing the way you'd speak to a trusted colleague, direct, clear, and without unnecessary padding. Practice summarising before you elaborate. When you need to influence a decision, lead with the outcome the other person cares about, not the process you went through.
Skill 4: Operational Excellence
What it means: Systems thinking. Process improvement. The ability to look at how work gets done and make it better, more efficient, more reliable, less dependent on any single person (including you). Operational excellence is what turns a good EA into someone the entire organisation depends on.
What it looks like in practice: You've built systems that run smoothly even when you're on holiday. You spot inefficiencies and fix them before anyone asks. You document processes so that institutional knowledge doesn't live only in your head. When something goes wrong, you don't just fix it, you fix the system that allowed it to happen.
How to develop it: Audit your recurring tasks. Which ones could be automated, templated, or delegated? Where are the bottlenecks? What breaks when you're not there? Start building systems that make the work sustainable, not just survivable.
→ Online Course: Strategic Planning and Execution
Skill 5: Leadership and Self-Management
What it means: Leading yourself before you lead others. Setting boundaries, managing your energy, building executive presence, and developing the emotional intelligence to handle high-pressure situations without burning out. This also includes mentoring others, leading projects, and stepping into leadership moments even when it's not in your job description.
What it looks like in practice: You say no to things that don't serve your priorities, and you do it without guilt. You manage your energy as carefully as you manage your time. You show up with confidence in rooms full of senior leaders. When a crisis hits, you're the calm one. People look to you for direction even though you're not technically "in charge."
How to develop it: Start with boundaries. If you can't protect your own time and energy, nothing else on this list will stick. Then work on presence, how you show up physically, verbally, and emotionally in high-stakes moments. Seek feedback. Find a mentor who's been where you want to go.
→ Online Course: Executive Presence and Professional Branding
Skill 6: Career Ownership
What it means: Taking deliberate control of your professional development instead of waiting for someone else to invest in you. This means having a career plan, advocating for yourself, building your professional brand, and making strategic decisions about where to invest your time and energy.
What it looks like in practice: You have a clear picture of where you want to be in two years. You've had a conversation with your manager about your development goals, and you didn't wait for the annual review to do it. You invest in your own learning, whether that's courses, mentoring, networking, or reading. You know your value and you can articulate it.
How to develop it: Start with the Connected Leader Assessment to understand where you are now. Identify one skill area to focus on for the next quarter. Build a development plan that includes both formal learning and on-the-job practice. And if your employer won't invest in your development, invest in yourself — the return is worth it.
Find Out Where You Stand
You can't develop what you can't measure. The Connected Leader Assessment rates you across these six skill areas and gives you a personalised growth roadmap. It takes 10 minutes, it's completely free, and it gives you a clear picture of where to focus your energy.
→ Take the Free Assessment Now
Already know your gaps? Browse our online courses to start building the specific skills you need.