Confused as to what an administrative assistant should be doing to help you succeed as a CEO?

Here are some guidelines that can help:

Suggestions for scheduling
Before delegating your schedule to an administrative assistant, you first need to list all standing meetings, the standard times you commit to being “in the office” i.e. office hours and “sacred” time that is hours that are reserved for you for reflection and to prepare work products.

Approved meetings
List all those meetings and/or people who can be scheduled without further information.

Meeting criteria
For all other meetings that are proposed, you are going to want your administrative assistant to collect certain information about the meeting at a minimum:

• Purpose
• Attendees
• Topics to be covered
• Decisions to be made
• Preparation/information needed/available

Based on the above, you are going to want to retain the right to make a “yes” or “no” decision about whether to attend the meeting.

Approved phone calls
List all those people who can be put through without further information
A best practice is to prepare a call list of phone calls you need to initiate and/or return and make those calls together in one block of time.