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The Invisible Mistake That Keeps EAs Undervalued (And How to Fix It Fast)

The Strategic Assistant Revolution Continues

Author

Joshua Washington
September 04, 2025

💬 Quote of the Week

Value is not what you do. It’s the impact others feel because you did it.

Anonymous

💼 A Personal Note from Joshua

Hey EA-Pros Community,

I want to start with a story.

Last year, I coached a senior EA supporting a Fortune 500 executive. She was working 60+ hours a week, putting out fires, and keeping the machine running. Her exec told me privately: “She’s reliable, but I don’t see her as strategic.”

That floored her. Because she was being strategic, she just wasn’t being perceived that way.

Here’s the hard truth: value isn’t about what you do. It’s about what you articulate.

If you don’t control the narrative of your contributions, others will, and they’ll reduce you to “calendar, travel, and expenses.”

This week’s insight is about how to flip that script.

Joshua

🧠 Feature Insight

How to Articulate Your Value as a Strategic Partner

Executives don’t automatically connect your actions to business outcomes. That’s your job.

Here’s the 3-part framework I teach senior-level assistants to make their value crystal clear:

1️⃣ Translate Tasks Into Business Outcomes

❌ Don’t say: “I rescheduled the meeting.”

✅ Do say: “I optimized the leadership calendar to protect decision-making bandwidth before the investor pitch.”

📊 Why this matters: Studies show leaders make 20–30% fewer quality decisions when fatigued. Protecting their cognitive space is strategic impact.

2️⃣ Quantify Your Impact in Tangible Metrics

Executives think in numbers: time saved, revenue protected, costs avoided.

❌ Instead of: “I improved our workflow.”

✅ Try: “By streamlining approvals, I freed 6 leadership hours weekly, worth ~$18,000/month at their billable rate.”

💡 Data point: McKinsey research confirms assistants save executives an average of 2–3 hours per day. Framing this in dollars transforms perception.

3️⃣ Connect to Organizational Priorities

Show how your work ties directly to company objectives.

❌ Not: “I coordinated the offsite.”

✅ But: “I designed the agenda to align leadership around our Q3 retention goals, reducing the $250K annual turnover risk flagged by HR.”

👉 Executive Coach Action Step: Take one task from last week and reframe it in business terms. Then share it during your next 1:1. Do this consistently, and your value stops being invisible.

🧠 Executive Coaching Corner

Why You Need a Framework

Here’s the reality: if you don’t have a system for consistently articulating your value, you’ll default back to being “busy” instead of “strategic.”

That’s why you need a framework.

The ElevateEA framework isn’t theory; it’s been built on 6,000+ research and development hours. That’s more investment than most executive MBA programs, and it’s tailored exclusively to senior-level assistants.

Frameworks take the guesswork out. They ensure you’re:

  • Speaking the language of executives,

  • Positioning your work at all 4 levels (self, exec, team, organization),

  • Making your contributions measurable and undeniable.

📌 Good news: That framework already exists. It’s inside the ElevateEA Master Strategy Class.

🔥  REPLAY ACCESS: Breaking the Career Ladder

If you missed the last session, you missed some eye-opening truths that assistants said blew their minds.

Here’s what attendees discovered:

  • Secret #1: The Invisible Shift: A new identity standard is redefining EA value, and ignoring it could cost you your career ceiling.

  • Secret #2: The Strategic Identity: How a small group of EAs is being invited to the table because of one subtle shift.

  • Secret #3: Timing: Why waiting even one year could set you behind, and the shortcut strategic EAs are taking instead.

The replay is now live, but it won’t stay up forever.

✉️ P.S.

You’re not just fighting for recognition, you’re redefining what it means to be indispensable.

Remember: value unspoken is value unseen.

Let’s make sure yours is undeniable.

With respect,

Joshua Washington,

Senior Executive Coach

P.S. Don’t just read this, apply it. Reframe one task into strategic language this week. Watch how differently your executive responds.