Secretaries, Administrative Assistants

Always stay very friendly & on excellent terms with all the secretaries, administrative assistants & various administrative personnel in your organization.

They can often get you needed access to a boss or senior leader when normally you wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance in Hell.

Their boss’s schedule may look jam-packed, but she’ll know exactly when meetings or conference calls end early or when there’s a cancellation or change in his schedule.

Keep everything above board, naturally, but it never hurts to invite them to a departmental pot luck or whatever.

Yes, we all know that many places are able to feed all of the world’s starving people with the leftover (and often, untouched) food & refreshments from the Board Room & various conference rooms, especially when there are guests or senior leaders in town, but it never hurts to be extra nice.

Whenever you have a pot luck or some kind of celebration for your own group, invite a couple of them over!

Just make sure that you bring extra provisions or pay for some extras so that your own people don’t get shorted on anything due to your “generosity”.

And I’m sure that your guests will truly appreciate getting out & mingling with your people as they’re usually accustomed to working solo & don’t often have the opportunity to participate with a “team”.

A simple gesture like that will often go a very long way to establishing & strengthening bonds with those people who can help you get your boss’s (or your boss’s boss’s) ear or an informal chat so these leaders know exactly who you are.

You can make a good impression on anyone when you acknowledge the fact that they’re also people…not just these faceless, sterile authority figures…and a positive connection with them could do wonders for your career.

No, I’m NOT encouraging you to venture out on an ass-kissing tour, but at any stage in your career, it’s always helpful when a senior leader (a level or two above your immediate manager) knows your name & has a good impression of you.

Perhaps not as important as being selected for some prestigious honor, e.g., Employee of the Year, but all relationships must start somewhere.

And there are many times (especially when you’re a leader yourself) to get immediate access to your boss to informally discuss some ideas you may have without the need for a formal presentation or meeting.

Just testing the waters, so if you have an ally that that can help facilitate your getting access to s senior leader, I recommend that you take advantage of that situation.

And if you don’t already have someone in your corner to help you, then what are you waiting for??? 🤔

This was a short one, heh?

As always, thank you so very much for listening!