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How to Lead, Influence, and Drive Change
- Meg Steinschauer, MBA
- May 19
- 12 min read
Leadership isn’t a destination or simply a job title, it’s a mindset, a way of thinking, acting, and influencing others to achieve shared goals. True leadership exists at every level of an organisation, not just in the corner office. And behind every successful CEO or thriving business, there’s often an unsung hero working diligently in the background, the Executive Assistant or Chief of Staff. Oftentimes, it’s both.
These roles go far beyond what’s written in the job description. They are critical partners in driving strategic execution, streamlining decision-making, and ensuring organisational success. From managing complex schedules and facilitating communication to offering key insights and enabling leaders to focus on what really matters, EAs and CoS professionals are often the glue that holds everything together, quietly shaping the trajectory of a company from behind the scenes. Their impact is not only significant, it’s indispensable.
In my own career, my Executives always saw me as a leader. They trusted me with their strategy, their priorities, and their time. But it wasn’t always that clear to others. I’ve sat in meetings where my role was misunderstood or overlooked, not out of malice, but because traditional ideas of leadership still tend to hinge on hierarchy and job titles. And when an EA or CoS is influencing outcomes without the title to match, it challenges those expectations.
That’s the problem. Because too often, leadership is reserved for those “at the top,” while the professionals driving real change behind the curtain remain undervalued. Especially for those of us who transitioned from an EA role into a Chief of Staff position, the leap in leadership is felt internally long before it's recognised externally.
This post is about reclaiming that space. I’ll show you how to step into a leadership mindset, wield influence without authority, and drive change from wherever you sit in the organisation.
Leadership Isn’t About Titles, It’s About Impact
Leadership doesn’t arrive with a promotion or appear on a business card. It shows up in how you make decisions, how you navigate complexity, and how you influence the direction of a team or organisation through your daily actions. It’s not about the job title, it’s about the impact you create. Consistently. Quietly. With intention.
If you’re an EA or Chief of Staff, chances are you’ve already been operating in a leadership capacity, whether others have called it that or not. You guide priorities. You translate strategy into action. You see the risks before they escalate and find ways to address them before others even realise they exist. You are a steadying force in fast-moving environments, a behind-the-scenes architect of outcomes, and a critical link between big-picture thinking and day-to-day delivery.
The tricky part? This kind of influence doesn’t always come with public recognition. In fact, it’s often misunderstood or overlooked entirely by those who equate leadership with hierarchy. But if we go by the actual definition of leadership, the picture looks very different.
“Leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal.” - Northouse, P. G. (2019).
By that standard, EAs and CoS professionals embody leadership every single day. You may not always be the one making the final call, but you are often the one shaping the context in which decisions are made. You influence outcomes through relationships, foresight, clarity, and trust. Not through formal authority, but through the way you operate.
This is the kind of leadership that does not need a podium. It does not wait for a title. It works through calm confidence, strategic clarity, and a deep understanding of how to move things forward. It might not always get the recognition it deserves, but its impact is undeniable.
Leadership is not a title someone gives you. It is a practice. A set of choices. A mindset you choose to adopt every day, in how you show up and in how you help others rise with you.
Why You, as an EA or CoS, Are a Leader and drive change
You may not be the one setting the vision, but you are the one ensuring it gets delivered. And that, in itself, is leadership.
EA's and CoS' are in roles that demand exceptional judgement, emotional intelligence, and strategic clarity. You are often tasked with navigating ambiguity, resolving bottlenecks, and balancing the weight of conflicting priorities, all without the shield of formal authority. What sets you apart is not just what you do, but how you do it, quietly shaping progress, guiding decision-makers, and holding the whole system together when things get messy.
Let’s break down what this looks like in practice.
Decision-Making Agility
You operate in real time, helping leaders process complex information and act decisively. This doesn’t mean making all the decisions, it means knowing which decisions need to be made, when, and by whom, and clearing the path for that to happen.
Why this is leadership
Your judgement under pressure helps steer the ship. You don’t organise decisions, you influence how and when they’re made.
Strategic Thread-Holding
When priorities shift, and they always do, you’re often the one keeping the story straight. You maintain context across conversations, ensure that follow-up actions are aligned with broader objectives, and help others reconnect with what actually matters.
Why this is leadership
You hold the narrative together. You help people stay focused on the bigger picture, even when the day-to-day gets noisy.
Proactive Risk Management
You see patterns others don’t. Whether it’s spotting operational gaps, noticing misalignment between departments, or quietly rerouting a decision to avoid conflict, you intervene before issues spiral.
Why this is leadership
You act before you’re asked. You prevent problems, protect momentum, and bring a sense of calm to complexity.
Operational Follow-Through
Great ideas mean nothing if they’re never implemented. You turn intent into execution by coordinating teams, tracking deliverables, and nudging things forward without fanfare.
Why this is leadership
You ensure that strategy becomes action. You close the loop. Without you, things stall.
Human Insight and Influence
Your relationships are your most powerful tool. Whether you're coaching your executive on a sensitive dynamic, encouraging team leads to align priorities, or offering a well-timed nudge to move things along, you influence outcomes through trust and clarity.
Why this is leadership
You don't need formal authority. You shape behaviour, drive progress, and make people feel seen.
Leadership in Motion
You lead through the way you think, prioritise, and communicate. Through your adaptability. Through your ability to navigate high-stakes situations without needing credit or control. The value of your leadership isn’t in how loudly it announces itself—it’s in the consistency, clarity, and impact you deliver every day.
If you're a visual person like me, have a lil' look here, this is what I mean:
This diagram visually represents how EAs and CoS professionals embody leadership through the integration of strategic insight, operational excellence, and interpersonal acumen. By operating at the nexus of these three domains, you lead effectively without formal authority, driving significant impact within their organisations.
Three Leadership Pillars
If your leadership doesn’t come with a title, where does it come from?
It comes from how you think. How you influence. How you act when no one’s watching. For us in supportive roles, leadership is rarely about formal authority. It’s about how effectively you shape outcomes, align stakeholders, and move the business forward. These roles demand a level of adaptability, judgement, and presence that quietly powers executive teams and keeps strategy on course.
Below are three core pillars that define what leadership looks like in motion for EAs and CoS professionals, each backed by practical strategies you can use to deepen your impact.
1️⃣ Leadership Is a Mindset, Not a Title
Leadership doesn’t begin with authority. It begins with how you see yourself. If you view your role as a strategic partner in organisational success, others will begin to see it that way too. Your mindset shapes your presence, and your presence shapes your influence.
The most effective EAs and CoS professionals don’t ask whether they’re allowed to lead. They focus on where they can create value, and lead from there.
💡 What to do: Shift from Execution to Impact
Rather than framing your work in terms of what’s been done, start positioning it in terms of what it drives. Every calendar you build, every note you write, every agenda you structure is an opportunity to create clarity and push progress forward.
🔹 Example
✅ Instead of: “I’ve scheduled the leadership meeting.”
✔️ Try: “I’ve structured the agenda to align around key funding decisions ahead of the board review.”
📌 Why it matters
When you operate with a leadership mindset, others begin to treat you as a leadership partner. Your influence grows not because you demand it, but because your contributions clearly shape direction and results.
2️⃣ Strategic Thinking: Seeing the Bigger Picture
Being at the centre of people, process, and priorities gives you a rare vantage point. Strategic thinking is about using that position to connect information across the business, spot early signals, and make sense of what others miss. It’s not about having all the answers, it’s about asking the right questions before anyone else realises they need to be asked.
💡 How to develop this skill: Practise Anticipatory Thinking
Get into the habit of zooming out. Don’t get stuck in task execution without asking where it all leads. Build the discipline of regularly pausing to consider:
✔️ What’s the long-term impact of this decision?
✔️ Are there dependencies or risks being missed?
✔️ How does this piece connect to the wider strategy?
🔹 Example
✅ Instead of: “The marketing team is running behind.”
✔️ Try: “The team’s delay is tied to dependencies on product updates. Should we shift launch timelines to avoid downstream disruption?”
📌 Why it matters
Strategic thinkers become trusted advisors. When you consistently surface unseen risks or reframe issues with context and foresight, your role evolves from support to strategy.
3️⃣ Influence Without Authority: Driving Decisions and Alignment
You don’t need to have the loudest voice in the room to be the most influential one. Influence without authority is about how you build relationships, ask sharp questions, and steer conversations with subtle but intentional direction. It’s one of the most undervalued leadership skills, and it’s core to the EA and CoS function.
💡 Tips for Leading Through Influence
✔️ Ask Guiding Questions
Frame your input with curiosity and context:
🔹 “What’s the key outcome we’re solving for here?”
🔹 “Is this aligned with our current goals?”
🔹 “What risk do we carry if we delay this decision?”
✔️ Connect to Impact
Help stakeholders see the bigger picture:
🔹 Instead of: “We need to move this meeting.”
🔹 Try: “By shifting this, we give product more time to finalise updates before the client demo.”
✔️ Invest in Relationships
The stronger your credibility, the more likely people are to listen when you speak up. Take time to build trust across functions so that your voice carries weight when it matters most.
📌 Why it matters
People rarely follow titles alone. They follow clarity, calm, and credibility. Influence without authority is not about power, it’s about presence.
Real Leadership in Action: The Power of Reflection
Leadership isn’t measured by how many tasks you complete. It’s measured by how thoughtfully and intentionally you grow. The most impactful leaders don’t just power through the to-do list. They pause. They observe. They learn. And they make space for deliberate improvement.
For EAs and Chiefs of Staff, reflection is not a luxury, it’s a necessity. You’re often operating at such pace that it’s easy to miss your own growth in the process. But your ability to evolve how you lead, communicate, and influence is what separates functional support from strategic leadership.
Reflection is the tool that transforms busy into better.
💡 Actionable Strategy: Make Reflection a Daily Practice
Take five minutes at the end of your workday, not for your wrap-up notes, not for your task tracker, but for you. These questions aren’t for anyone else’s benefit. They’re for building the version of your leadership that tomorrow needs.
Ask yourself:
🔹 What went well today?
❔Did I influence a key decision?
❔Did I create clarity where there was noise?
❔Did I support my executive or team in a way that created momentum?
🔹 Where could I have had more impact or influence?
❔Were there moments I stayed quiet when I had a valuable insight?
❔Did I defer when I could have led?
❔Did I miss an opportunity to connect the dots?
🔹 What is one thing I want to improve tomorrow?
❔Do I need to speak up more confidently?
❔Delegate more intentionally?
❔Proactively check in with a stakeholder or project owner?
This simple habit builds self-awareness, which is the foundation of all other leadership capabilities. It doesn’t need to be perfect. It just needs to be consistent.
📌 Why It Matters
✅ It builds intentionality.
You’re not leading on autopilot. You’re choosing your approach with care.
✅ It deepens your insight.
Patterns start to emerge. You begin to see what’s truly working, and what’s not.
✅ It grows your confidence.
Progress becomes visible, and with it, your belief in your own leadership expands.
✅ It strengthens your influence.
When you reflect, you refine. And refined leadership is more compelling, more strategic, and more trusted.
The Link Between Reflection and Leadership Growth
Reflection is not a soft skill. It’s a sharp tool. One that turns experience into insight, and insight into action. When you build time into your day to review how you led, what worked, and where you could have done more, you start to lead with greater precision and purpose.
Here’s how reflection strengthens your leadership:
✅ Boosts Self-Awareness
You start to see patterns in your behaviour, strengths you hadn’t named, and areas where you tend to hold back. That awareness helps you lead with more clarity and intention.
✅ Improves Decision-Making
Looking back gives you a clearer lens for what’s ahead. Reflection helps you spot how decisions played out, what the unintended consequences were, and how to respond differently next time.
✅ Strengthens Strategic Thinking
When you take a moment to step back, you stop getting caught in the weeds. You connect today’s actions with tomorrow’s goals.
✅ Increases Confidence and Influence
With each reflection, your sense of what you bring grows stronger. You begin to trust your judgement, speak with more conviction, and influence more intentionally.
Leadership Is About How You Show Up
Leadership isn’t something you wait for. It’s something you practise, through intention, reflection, and the quiet confidence of knowing the impact you make, even when others don’t always see it.
Whether you keep a daily journal, record voice notes on your walk home, or mentally check in with yourself before shutting your laptop, reflection is how you grow your leadership muscle. It’s where lessons become leverage.
Ask yourself:
❔ What shifted today because of me?
❔ Where did I hold back?
❔ What do I want to do differently tomorrow?
Because true leaders don’t just get things done. They evolve. They learn. They adapt.
And leadership, at its core, is about how you show up, especially when the title doesn’t come with authority or recognition. Whether you're steering big decisions, aligning teams, or quietly solving problems no one else even sees, your daily actions define your influence.
You already lead. You already drive outcomes. Now, it’s time to own that truth.
Your organisation needs leaders like you. Leaders who see beyond the task list, who bring strategy and clarity to the chaos, who lead not by command, but by conviction.
So here’s the real question:
What kind of leader do you want to become next?
Meg ✌️
♻️If this resonated with you, share it with someone who needs to read it today.
P.S. Want to Go Deeper?
If this resonated with you and you're ready to explore your leadership more intentionally, I've included some powerful readings below. These are the books and papers that helped shape the thinking behind this piece, and they’re well worth your time.
Whether you're reflecting on your own style, sharpening your influence, or stepping more fully into strategic leadership, these resources will give you insight, language, and depth to support your growth.
📃Castelli, P. (2016). Reflective leadership review: a framework for improving organisational performance. Journal of Management Development, 35, 217-236. https://doi.org/10.1108/JMD-08-2015-0112
📃Crossan, M., Mazutis, D., & Seijts, G. (2013). In Search of Virtue: The Role of Virtues, Values and Character Strengths in Ethical Decision Making. Journal of Business Ethics, 113, 567 - 581. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-013-1680-8.
📃Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ. .
📃Northouse, P. (2000). Leadership: Theory and Practice.
P.P.S.
Why do I even have the nerve to write this? Fair question.
I’m someone who’s spent years working alongside incredible executives, navigating chaos, translating vision into action, and figuring it out (sometimes the hard way) as I go. I’ve had the privilege of being the right hand to some truly inspiring leaders, learning through every challenge, misstep, and breakthrough.
I also happen to have an MBA (if that counts for anything), and I’m currently studying psychology, mostly because people fascinate me. How we work. Why we disconnect. What actually makes us tick.
But really, none of that is the point.
I’m just here to share what I’ve learned in case it helps someone else. Take what’s useful. Leave the rest. And remember: you’re probably doing far better than you give yourself credit for.
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