What to Look for in an Executive Assistant

I officially joined Prime Movers Lab as Dakin Sloss’ executive assistant on January 1st, 2020. However, my relationship with Dakin began in June of 2019, my first full summer living in Jackson, Wyoming. At the time, I was feeling unfulfilled. I was yearning to find the young entrepreneur community that I was used to in Atlanta. One day, while I was working part-time at a cryotherapy center, Dakin called to purchase some sessions. After the sale, we chatted for 30 minutes about how excited he was about returning to Jackson.

I didn’t know it at the time, but Dakin and his wife, Gabrielle Sloss, were in the depths of building what Prime Movers Lab is today: a mission that left them needing extra support. Naively and purposefully, I joined this mission, because I have always had the desire to be of service to the world, and Dakin and Gabrielle were doing just that.

Today, Dakin and I have been partners for a little more than two years and it has been a deeply profound experience. Throughout my partnership with Dakin, I have had the privilege of working with the most brilliant humans and organizations who are providing real value to their immediate communities and far beyond. During the last two years, I’ve learned a lot about what makes someone an effective EA and I wanted to share the mindset and skills needed to support an executive.

What is an Executive Assistant?

In short, an EA is a partner to their executive, providing direct support and adding value to the executive and the organization. This is a broad description on purpose, because the role of an EA will cover a wide array of responsibilities and projects.

Here are some high-level examples of what an exceptional EA does:

• Hold an active seat on the leadership team, providing insight and value on strategy, operations, administration, event planning, and company culture.
• Maintain and cultivate relationships with the entire organization as well as many key individuals in the executive’s life.
• Overseeing an executive’s personal affairs by helping to manage properties, house staff, travel, and events.
• Act as a knowledge hub and resource for all employees while being a steward of the company culture.

Mindset

A great EA will have a service and growth-oriented mindset. They will always seek opportunities to learn as well as help those around them. An EA knows that this job can be 24/7 and putting out fires at odd hours is a hazard of the profession. When challenges do arise, immediate action is needed and communication can oftentimes be intense. For evident reasons, having awareness of one’s own ego is a crucial prerequisite for this role and mutual structured feedback is critical for this partnership to work. Like with all partnerships, the ability to receive and give feedback is extremely important. Scheduling a regular check-in between the EA and the executive can add immense value to the partnership and organization as a whole.

I have learned that the best EAs are fully aligned with their executive on their values and mission. It is the duty of the EA to be fully committed to the mission that their executive is in pursuit of. As Partner Anton Brevde stated in his post about Chiefs of Staff, the EA also has to be able to see the world through the eyes of their executive. For that to happen, the EA must be an empathetic human with the ability to relate to the people around them.

There will be a lot of times where an EA is thrown into uncharted waters with the expectation of steering the ship in the right direction. Composure and confidence is required at this stage because the EA will have to remain calm and have an insatiable desire to figure out a solution. A successful EA will be resourceful and creative in order to ensure the needs of their executive are met.

Skillset

Emotional Intelligence: a high level of emotional intelligence is one of the most important skillsets that an outstanding EA will possess. The ability to manage your own emotions and that of your colleagues is a crucial skill that will lead to a healthy and thriving organization. An EA must be able to see the world through the eyes of their executive as well as the eyes of the countless people that want time with the executive because this will ensure graceful interactions that nurture relationships. Relationships are a big part of the job and oftentimes the EA will act as a proxy for the executive.

Leadership: being a leader for the executive means carrying out the vision in his or her stead. A busy executive will simultaneously work on many different outcomes that advance the vision, and with that comes the need for delegation. The EA must be able to take ownership of some of these outcomes, and in order to do that, they need to have the ability to inspire teams and individuals to perform at their best.

Organization: without personal organization, it’s extremely difficult to reach one’s own potential. This is something that I witness each day in the extremely successful humans across our ecosystem. Organization is achieved through understanding what the outcome is and creating the roadmap through systems and processes. An EA must be a master at creating organization out of chaos, because the problems we are solving are complex.

Take the time to find the right partnership, because this is not a relationship that you can force. It has to be natural. The relationship between an executive and their assistant is a powerful one that when understood fully can multiply both of your impacts by an order of magnitude.

Prime Movers Lab invests in breakthrough scientific startups founded by Prime Movers, the inventors who transform billions of lives. We invest in companies reinventing energy, transportation, infrastructure, manufacturing, human augmentation, and agriculture.

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