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The Secret Language of Leadership: Gratitude with Strategy (1)

The Strategic Assistant Revolution Continues

Author

Joshua Washington
November 20, 2025

💬 Quote of the Week

“Power is rarely taken from you. It leaks when you don’t name the value you’re already creating.”

— Lee Malveaux

💼 A Personal Note from Joshua

Hey EA-Pros Community,

One of the most common private frustrations I hear from Strategic Assistants is this:

“I’m doing work far above my title, but the organization treats it like a favor, not a function.”

That gap isn’t your fault.

It’s the Invisible Work Tax — the silent erosion of recognition, authority, and opportunity that happens when organizations benefit from your strategic value… but don’t yet have a system to categorize it.

This week’s newsletter is about eliminating that tax — not through confrontation, but through strategic visibility architecture.

You don’t need to convince people you’re strategic.

You need to make your strategic value impossible to ignore.

Let’s go there.

Joshua

🚀 Feature Insight

The Invisible Work Tax Framework

(And the 3 levers Strategic Assistants use to break it permanently)

Senior-level assistants are creating enterprise-level value every day — anticipating risk, shaping decisions, aligning teams, and driving execution. But because this value happens upstream and behind the scenes, it often goes uncounted.

This creates a structural problem:

• You carry responsibility with no matching authority

• You influence outcomes without being named in them

• You protect your executive’s time while sacrificing your own

• You become essential… without being recognized as such

Here’s the truth the EA-Pros movement stands on:

Strategic value is not self-evident. It must be architected, articulated, and operationalized.

This week, you’ll build your architecture using three levers pulled directly from MIROR & MICRO (Career-Critical Conversations) :

⸻

Lever 1 — Define Your Strategic Altitude

Most assistants describe their work in tasks.

Strategic Assistants describe it in impact:

• “I rescheduled the meeting” → task

• “I preserved 3 hours of decision time to advance Q1 initiatives” → impact

Using MIROR: Intent + Impact, write one sentence today:

“The core value I create at my highest altitude is…”

This becomes your internal North Star — and your external positioning language.

⸻
Lever 2 — Make Your Invisible Work Visible

Use MICRO: Core Message + Options to communicate value without self-promotion:

Instead of:

“I handled the budget issue.”

Try:

“Quick update: I identified a budget risk in the vendor proposal and presented two options. We selected the one that protects Q2 spend and avoids escalation.”

This is not bragging.

This is accurate reporting of enterprise risk prevention.

Executives need this kind of visibility to trust and scale you.

⸻

Lever 3 — Build a Recognition Loop

High-performing assistants often wait for recognition at the end of cycles.

Strategic Assistants create Results Cadence — a recurring rhythm that keeps stakeholders aware of contribution and progress.

Options:

• A weekly 3-bullet “Strategic Impact Summary”

• A monthly “Team Alignment Pulse”

• A quarterly “Value Metrics Review” tied to organizational outcomes

This aligns with the ElevateEA Master Strategy Class structure (Know Thy Work + Know Thy Business) .

Visibility is not noise.
Visibility is leadership infrastructure.

🧠 Executive Coaching Corner

Prompt: Where is your work currently invisible… but mission-critical?

Action: Use MIROR → Intent + Impact + Results to reframe one piece of invisible work into a strategic narrative.

Structure:

• Intent: What you set out to protect or enable

• Impact: What changed for the team, executive, or org

• Result: What risk was removed or opportunity gained

Watch what happens.

Leaders respond when value becomes legible.

✉️ P.S.

The assistant profession isn’t being automated —

it’s being redefined.

And the Strategic Assistants who rise now will shape the new identity of the role for decades.

This week, eliminate the Invisible Work Tax.

Architect your visibility.

Stand in your strategic altitude.

That’s how you become truly irreplaceable.

Joshua Washington,
Senior Executive Coach
Org Psychologist