Elevating Your Executive Support: How to Anticipate Needs Like a Pro

The best Administrative Professionals don’t just respond to tasks—they predict needs before they arise. Here’s how to become an indispensable partner to executives.

• Understand Executive Preferences: Learn their schedule, priorities, and work style.
  • Review the calendar for one year prior and note recurring meetings and activities. Plan for those in the upcoming year. I would usually add them as tentative on my executive’s calendar as a reminder for both of us.
  • Working on big project deadlines? Block out time for your executive to work on the project. I would normally put several blocks of time on the calendar leading up to the project due date to ensure there is enough time to focus on the project.
• Stay a Step Ahead: Prepare materials and research before they are requested.
  • Go into your one-on-one meetings prepared! Consider what’s coming up on the calendar, to-dos, and go into the meeting with a list of things you want to discuss with them. From proposed meeting agendas, draft reports and emails to calendar appointments.  
• Be a Problem-Solver: Identify challenges and propose solutions proactively.
  • Understandably, we may not be in the position to fix a challenge however, we can offer solutions! To know me, is to hear me often say, “I have an idea! Or “I wonder if we should…” Be unafraid to share solutions! It shows that you are engaged and aware of what is going on around you.
  • For example, I am present in the management meeting and hear that customer call center is shorthanded due to scheduled vacations and now illness. Which means customers are going to experience long hold periods on the phone and our experience in these situations is the customer will press random extension numbers to get a live person on the phone.

Knowing that the customer center is shorthanded and other departments will likely be receiving these calls, I suggested we, “send a quick email to all departments advising of the shortage in the call center and provide a script of how to handle the calls and take messages.”

It didn’t solve the long hold times, but it did inform and empower the other departments to handle the phone call in an appropriate manner.

• Use Data to Make Decisions: Track key performance metrics to enhance support.

Reference Materials:

• “The CEO’s Secret Weapon: How Great Leaders and Their Assistants Maximize Productivity and Effectiveness” – Jan Jones
• Harvard Business Review: Supporting Executive Leadership
• The American Society of Administrative Professionals (ASAP): Executive Support Training